Help Desks vs. Service Desks: What’s the Difference?

When you have a technology issue at work, who do you go to? Does your company have a designated team within the IT department if your computer suddenly stops working? 

At most companies, an employee goes to a help desk or a service desk to get these issues solved. However, these terms are often used interchangeably and refer to different things. In fact, some companies don’t even call them help desks or service desks, but instead refer to them as care centers, technical support, and more. 

In any case, though, organizations should have a system dedicated to troubleshooting and fixing IT issues for stakeholders. 

Help desks and service desks are great solutions to this problem. So let’s discuss what they are, and how they’re different, and when an organization would use one or the other. 

What’s a Help Desk? 

“Help desks and service desks are extremely similar,” said Gus Huber, Evergreen’s Director of Customer Experience. Gus will help walk us through some of these similarities—and clear-cut differences. 

The help desk team is responsible for resolving technical issues, answering questions, and providing tech guidance to stakeholders. A company’s help desk plays an important role in ensuring that employees or customers can use technology efficiently and effectively, and that basic technical issues are resolved in a timely manner so stakeholders can return to their productive selves. 

A help desk, though, primarily handles trouble tickets, Gus says. They’re reactive organizations that hear of a singular issue with a singular person and try to remedy that issue. Some examples of these trouble tickets can be: 

• Needing a password reset 
• Not being able to connect to the internet or an application required to do your job 
• A laptop not connected to monitors 

These situations are usually break-fix issues, and if the trouble tickets can’t be solved, it’s usually escalated to another group. “A help desk response is purely transactional in that way,” Gus says. 

This is where an organization can experience gaps if they just have a help desk to focus on IT issues. Help desks hear of a singular problem with a user—whether through email, phone, or with a ticketing system—and try to solve it. They’re typically not designed to look at issues from an organizational perspective.  

When Would I Need a Help Desk? 

So, if that’s all help desks are designed to do, why would an organization have one? There are plenty of reasons, Gus says.  

• Smaller organizations might just need basic help desk support as the first step to building out their IT service management system. 
• Limited budgets narrow needing IT support to break-fix issues. 
• Full-scale ITSM isn’t a core need of the business, but the organization’s size demands some level of IT support.  
• Help desks are great for hyper care support, where an organization needs a team dedicated to a specific tech issue, like migration or implementation. 

But as the need for IT support within the organization expands, a service desk might make more sense. 

What is a Service Desk? 

A service desk, Gus says, takes a three-dimensional look at an issue when it comes through. Not only do they handle break-fix issues, they have a fully fledged ITSM system in place. On top of the immediate issue at hand, they can see: 

• A user’s past dealing with the service desk 
• What devices a user has that could also be affected by the issue 
• If this issue is common throughout the organization 

“Service desks don’t just find a solution for the immediate simple need that you have, but they also take into context how you are engaging with the I.T. environment,” Gus says. 

Critically, service desks also focus on the prioritization of tasks that balance business urgency and criticality. If employees can’t connect to systems, they can’t work or be productive. That trickles down to KPIs and goals. A service desk’s primary goals may be more related to behaviors that affect the financial success of the organization.  

“A service desk’s return on investment is lesser disruption to the business or acceleration of the business,” Gus explains. 

“If a business is in a selling mode, a well-functioning service desk means I’m able to sell more, faster. If the service desk is for a hospital, it means I’m able to deliver better patient care, faster, thereby retaining the patient.” 

As we’ve identified, service desks have to do more than break-fix solutions. Service desks will also: 

• Dissect complex/large-scale issues affecting the business: The service desk helps solve larger requests from customers and users. Whereas a help desk could help a single laptop connect to the internet, the service desk will help solve problems if an entire floor or office can’t access the internet. 
• Develope trainings and catalogs: Not every IT issue needs direct human intervention at each stage. In this case, service desks develop trainings and catalogs for employees/users to walk themselves through the issue. The service desk is always there to help if the issue can’t be solved, but  
• Manage change in IT systems: The service desk also is tasked with changing entire systems if need be. For instance, issues with implementing two-factor authentication across the organization may come to the service desk if there’s an issue with certain devices. 
• Handle information management: Where are these tickets, processes, trainings, and more stored? Where can employees access needed troubleshooting guides? The service desk also functions as an information management arm for your business. 
• Deliver and measure performance of tech, products, and systems: If you need a new laptop, a help desk doesn’t usually process those needs—a service desk does. If new tech or systems need to get rolled out to an organization, a service desk helps implement that change at scale. 

When Would I Need a Service Desk? 

Just like help desks, there are times where it’s more appropriate for an organization to have a service desk. 

• The customer base has grown to require more than just break-fix solutions. More employees or customers often mean needing a more robust ITSM system. 
• The existing IT support structure is negatively impacting revenue and productivity. A proactive service desk can shore up these issues. 
• The complexity of the tech issues and solutions have expanded to need a more expansive and proactive support system. 
• You don’t feel you have a holistic view of your IT environment. 

“Your service desk has the most frequent and intimate contact between any part of your organization and their employees,” Gus said. Employees on average contact human resources once everything three months. They contact the service desk more than three times as often. 

Tips for Building Help Desk & Service Desk Teams 

Whether you are deploying a help desk, service desk, these teams often see high turnover. Average turnover is 40%! That means for every 10 employees hired to one of these teams, just six are still in that role or on the team a year later. 

While this is somewhat natural given help and service desks are often entry-level, and both departments see lots of upward mobility, there are some small steps you can take to try and improve retention and reduce turnover on these teams. 

• Hire right: This may sound obvious, but hiring the right people for the role helps you. Some qualities of a good help desk candidate include proactivity, empathy, and a desire to work in the IT field. 
• Offer upskilling opportunities: If an employee wants to learn a new skill, help them! Learning new skills and the opportunity to grow in a career are vital for retention. There are endless opportunities for these with help and service desks. 
• Acknowledge the work of your employees: Recognition—verbal and tangible—goes a long way. Highlighting the work of individuals and teams and detailing how their efforts have positively affected business can help employees feel and know what they’re doing is important to the business’ overall goals. 
• Constantly engage: Your employees have hands-on experience with how processes are affecting the business. If you’re consistently engaging with them, you’ll potentially find new and better ways to operate help and service desks. On the other side of the coin, management should communicate to employees the “why” of what they’re doing—not just the “what.” 

Help Desk or Service Desk: Which One Do You Need? 

Help desks and service desks are crucial to a company’s operations. They’re the first couple lines of defense for IT issues throughout the organization, and they help business run as smoothly and efficiently as possible. 

Backed by the second-largest IT staffing firm in the U.S., Evergreen can help your business improve quality, scalability, retention, and innovation by building and managing entire IT service management processes. Let us know your needs below!