Get the most from Notes®

Years ago, most companies operated a help desk to assist computer users when they had problems with their hardware or software. (Frequently they didn’t’ know the difference.) The help desk was staffed with entry level employees and given no tools to help them with their job. Through no fault of their own, they earned the nickname “helpless desk”.

Today the term Service Desk is used in place of Help Desk. At least part of the motivation for this change is to avoid the negative reputation of the help desk. But the difference is more than semantics. These really are different things.

Help Desk

• Incident management
• Maintenance of asset inventory
• Separate from the business
• Create and maintain knowledge of applications, etc.
• Possibly provide self-help capabilities such as a knowledgebase
• The may have a technology-based service level agreement (SLA)

Service Desk

• Includes everything that is part of a help desk
• Integrated into the business
• Responsible for incident management, problem management, change management and configuration management
• Business-oriented SLA
• Operating Level Agreements (OLA – How the Service Desk will work with its internal support partners.)

Which one do you have? Both desks have a place. One is not necessarily right and the other wrong. However in setting proper expectations among your users, you should call it what it is. Members of the Help Desk and Service Desk organizations have a hard enough job without getting set up for failure.