People often use the terms help desk and service desk interchangeably when talking about customer service systems. But that doesn’t mean they’re the same. They’re actually closely related but different components of ITSM, or IT service management, the set of practices that enable companies to provide IT as a service.

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A service desk is the component of ITSM that directly interacts with customers, receiving service requests and forwarding them to the help desk. A help desk is the incident management component of ITSM that works on the actual resolution of issues received by the service desk. Working together, these two components make it possible for your company to provide comprehensive customer service and support customer relationship management.

In this article, we’ll compare help desk vs. service desk: what they are, what they do, how they work together and how to determine which one you need.

Article Roadmap:

• What Is ITSM?
• What Is a Help Desk?
• What Is a Service Desk?
• Help Desk vs. Service Desk
• Which Should You Use?
• Selecting Help Desk and Service Desk Tools
• Next Steps

What Is ITSM?

Before we break down help desk vs. service desk, we need to delve into what they’re part of: ITSM. ITSM refers to the systems, procedures and protocols used by companies to provide hardware and software support and troubleshooting advice to end-users.

Everything from the provision of computers to employees to remotely fixing issues arising in a customer’s software is included under ITSM. It helps in streamlining software deployment, troubleshooting technical issues, simplifying software updates and changes, and improving customer experience.

ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) provides the basic framework for various ITSM activities. ITIL has its roots in the 1980s, when the British government created a set of recommendations or best practices designed to standardize IT services. In 1989, it released a series of 30 books documenting these recommendations. Later on, the examination institute EXIN developed certification schemes for ITIL.

Information technology changes fast, so ITSM does too. To account for this, ITIL is periodically updated and new versions are released. According to the latest version of ITIL, ITSM processes encompass five steps:

• Service Strategy: This step focuses on understanding and forecasting the demand for IT services and developing a portfolio of services accordingly, including cost assessments and other strategic considerations.
• Service Design: This step centers on building services and processes to meet your business needs, including procurement, risk management, security and compliance.
• Service Transition: These are the suggested practices for managing the transition to a new or changing service without affecting service quality.
• Service Operation: This step involves the day-to-day processes and practices involved in IT service management. The everyday operations of your help desk and service desk should be governed by the best practices for service operation.
• CSI/Continual Service Improvement: As with any business venture, the most important thing in ITSM is striving for continuous improvement. This step covers the best practices for improving and expanding services in response to changes in technology or business goals.

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What Is a Help Desk?

A help desk is the department in your organization that handles problems as they arise and offers solutions. It handles incident management and issue resolution.

Employees working for the help desk don’t interact directly with customers even when they may be handling customer issues. They receive issue reports from the service desk, resolve the issue using their technical expertise and then forward confirmation of issue resolution to service desk employees.

Some companies also have dedicated help desks for internal IT services and troubleshooting. These are called internal help desks and deal with issues like internal server errors, employee email and accounts, internal software troubleshooting and maintenance, among other things.

What Is a Service Desk?

A service desk is a service-oriented platform that deals with customer complaints and software issues directly.

Service desk employees handle tickets, interact with customers and follow up when needed. A service desk acts as a mediator between customers and help desk employees. Help desk employees have technical expertise but may not be trained in customer handling.

When a customer submits a support request, service desk employees receive it, interact with the customer to figure out the details of the issue and then forward it to the help desk. Help desk employees resolve the problem and then forward it to the service desk employees. Service desk employees then talk to the customer to confirm that the issue was resolved. They might also follow up with customers to make sure the problem doesn’t arise again.

Help Desk vs. Service Desk

We’ve talked about help desk and service desk as components of ITSM. To summarize the differences between the two, let’s do a quick comparison.

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Which Should You Use?

So, does your company need a help desk or a service desk? The short answer is, you probably need both. The help desk handles the technical aspects of issue resolution while the service desk handles the customer service aspect.

In 2022, Zendesk found that 60% of customers had higher customer service standards than they did in 2021. Designing your support system to be specialized with a skill-based division of labor helps ensure maximum efficiency and a superior customer experience.

There are certain cases, however, where you only need a help desk. If your IT department is not customer-facing and just handles internal complaints, you don’t need a service desk. Your employees don’t need the customer service element, so a simple internal help desk might suffice for handling everyday IT issues and troubleshooting.

Selecting Help Desk and Service Desk Tools

Software tools can build on the capabilities of help desks and service desks to make your operations even smoother. These tools help with support ticket management and enable teams to manage their day-to-day operations in a more streamlined manner.

Some factors to consider when selecting software for your customer service operations include your budget, business size, specific industry needs and how much of the business is customer-facing. Also consider whether you need one single platform for both or separate tools for help desk and service desk needs. If you’re using different tools, ensure that data can be migrated and shared easily, and that there are integrations to help the platforms work together.

Some features you should look for in a service desk platform include ticket management, automatic routing, omnichannel ticketing support, customer history database support, live chat capabilities and call center management. For a help desk platform, collaboration tools, bug tracking and knowledge base management are useful features.

Knowledge management features are particularly useful in helping you create better customer experiences. Your help desk team can create guides and tutorials to help customers troubleshoot their own issues without having to contact your support team. This reduces your help desk’s workload without compromising your service quality. In fact, it can actually improve satisfaction by reducing customer effort and making support more convenient.

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Next Steps

Help desk and service desks are complementary components of IT support and work together to enhance customer experience.

With the right approach to ITSM and the right tools, you can achieve higher rates of customer satisfaction. Finding the right tools isn’t always easy — every organization is unique and has unique software needs. Our requirements template can help you get a strong sense of your customer service needs and select the best help desk or service desk software for your organization.

Did you find this article helpful? How do your service desk and help desk help you create better customer experiences? Let us know in the comments!