I hope you have enjoyed reading my previous article “Service Management – Does IT Know Your Business?”. In this article I will share with you the stages of the evolving Service Desk function.
According to ITIL & IT Service Management Zone (www.itil.org.uk), ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) defines Service Desk as:
“The Service Desk acts as the central point of contact between service providers and users on a day to day basis. It is also a focal point for reporting incidents and for service requests. It can also provide an interface, for other service management activities (such as change, problem, configuration, release and continuity management).”
“The Service Desk is a single point of contact (SPOC) for end-users who need help. Without this single point of contact an organization would face major losses in time spent on looking for ways to fix issues and get help.”
In House Service Desk
An “in house” Service Desk can be considered the earliest (first generation) adaptation the Service Desk function. Space in the office is set aside as the Service Desk and equipped with facilities such as telephones, call management system, computers, remote support tools, processes, training and knowledge systems.
Note. In this article we won’t go into full details of each of these facilities, but look for my upcoming articles where we can one by one discuss these facilities and how to properly define their attributes.
Service Desk Agents receiving incident reports via telephone will make a record of the incident (effectively logging an incident ticket) and provide over-the-phone support. If remote resolution is unsuccessful the incident will be assigned to an onsite support engineer (for some small operation it is the Service Desk agent who will walk to the user’s desk to provide onsite support).
PROs
Since the Service Desk is at the same location (assuming only need to support one (1) location) so the following are the advantages of an in-house Service Desk:
1. LAN (Local Area Network) connection from Service Desk to office and end users is minimum cost aside from just network cabling and switch ports. As such security is assured, literally the same security control as the rest of the office
2. Phone system is internal from Service Desk to end users, therefore Internal/Local call is no cost or minimal cost
3. Resources (total number of persons) can be an absolute minimum, If the agent also act as an onsite support engineer
CONs
However, as most corporations have experienced and eventually moved to the second generation (see below), an in-house Service Desk has the following draw backs:
1. Cost of these facilities is high, especially not shared by large number of end users
2. An office building is not designed for Service Desk operation, for example when the Service Desk need to operate beyond the office hours of 5x8 (5 days a week, 8 hours per day). Air conditioning is very important for Service Desk that need to operate in a hot Summer season or in a cold Winter season.
3. An in-house Service Desk because of its proximity to the end users, is often abused by end users for its convenience. For example rather than calling the Service Desk (logging a ticket and queuing up for support), users bypass the queue by walking to the Service Desk and demand immediate support. Worse the end user may demand the Service Desk agent, who is not the onsite support engineer, to leave the Service Desk and provide onsite support.
Note. This may not be a problem on the surface, but if you consider the efficiency of remote support versus onsite support, you can understand this is against the objective of increasing incidents resolved by remote support.
Note. This may not be a problem on the surface, but if you consider the efficiency of remote support versus onsite support, you can understand this is against the objective of increasing incidents resolved by remote support.