SERVICE DESK

Though Service Desk is not a process, the Service Desk is an important function within the service support.

Objective:
To focus on Incident Control and Communication as it is the first and ideally single point of contact for users (SPOC).

How it works?
The Service Desk handles all incoming calls through Mail / Phone / ticketing system and escalates them to the second or third tier support as and when necessary.
The Service Desk will have access to a Knowledge Base, which will contain a list of known solutions for some common incidents. This way queries or incidents can be solved by the Service Desk staff without escalating to next level and taking much time from IT Engineers.
The Service Desk is responsible for keeping the customer informed on the status of their request.
For the customer the advantage is that they are the single point of contact and they don’t have to go around searching for the right person to solve their problem.
For IT personnel (IT Domain Engineers) they only have to deal with issues that are related to their skills or area of responsibility.

Process of Service Desk:
• Provide Assistance, advice and guidance to customers
• Communicate and promote IT services as per the SLA
• Manage and control service communications to customers, suppliers, Vendors and the business
• Coordinate Incident Management activities
• Manage people, processes and technologies w.r.t operations of an IT infrastructure
• Provide management information about Service Desk quality and operations

Critical Success Factors (CSFs)
• Ensure long term Customer retention and satisfaction (as they are the face of the IT department.)
· Reduce support costs by the efficient use of resource and technology

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Ensure Long Term Customer Retention and Satisfaction
• Percentage of Customers provided Satisfaction Surveys
• Customer Satisfaction Rating on Service Desk
• Percentage of Caller Hold Times within SLA
• Percentage of Calls Responded To Within SLA
• Number of Incident Records Not Yet Closed With in SLA
• Number of Calls Abandoned
Reduce Support Costs by Efficient Use of Resources and Technologies
• Percent of Calls Resolved At the Service Desk without Escalation
• Staff Turnover Rate on the calls / requests.
• Overall Cost per Call.

Finally Service Desk stands for providing a central point of contact for customers and supports the Incident Management process by providing a single point of contact to manage incidents to resolution w.r.t operations.