What is IT Help Desk Software?

Modern IT help desks and service desks must quickly and accurately respond to a steady flow of IT issues. These issues affect both end-users and business processes.

Keeping track of all the outstanding issues, or “incidents” as ITIL calls them, is important. We must also reference previously solved issues. This helps us achieve speed and accuracy. Complexity in modern organizations, and the need to make continual savings, means that help desk effectiveness and efficiency rests heavily on using fit-for-purpose help desk software. This supports help desk staff and their IT service management (ITSM) processes.

Help desk software helps with incident and request management. It includes workflow and automation features. The software also improves efficiency and customer experience. It offers self-service portals and knowledge bases.

Users can access remote control and self-service password reset and it has email integration.

Do I Need IT Help Desk Software?

Good help desk software helps agents to deal with a variety of end-user “contacts” – be they related to incidents, requests for service or information, or complaints – precisely once. This means that multiple calls (or other forms of contacts such as emails) about the same issue or requirement are recorded as tickets, linked together, and passed to the same individual or team working on it. The help desk software ensures that all issues are ticketed and monitored such that tickets are never left unattended (with delays and service level breaches), forgotten, or lost.

Help desk software facilitates this through prioritization, categorization, automated routing, service level management, and escalation capabilities. It also supports modern help desks across the whole range of their responsibilities.

Key Features of Effective IT Help Desk Software:

• Capturing and recording the relevant details of all incidents, requests, complaints, and other end-user issues. In addition to providing a means for help desk agents to enter those details, the help desk software also allows the direct capture from end-user self-service logging, email integration, and automatic capture from monitoring tools and devices.
• Allocating and routing issues to the appropriate help desk agents or directly to second or third line support staff. The help desk software will also manage the transfer of tickets between different help desk agents and resolution groups.
• Managing and reporting on ticket statuses, so staff and customers can easily check on the status and progress of their tickets. Management can also get visibility into help desk workloads, team and individual performance, service level achievement, and end-user customer satisfaction and feedback.
• Facilitating self-service to help reduce help desk workloads, with the help desk software’s knowledge base and knowledge management capabilities helping end users to help themselves.

Modern IT help desk software supports agents and processes by linking with ITSM information on changes, problems, and errors. Perhaps most importantly, helpdesk software can also link help desk agents to key sources of data and information:

• By interfacing with the configuration management database (CMDB) (CMDB) – whether part of the help desk software suite or not – help desk staff can be made immediately aware of relevant information about new calls they are taking. Information about the caller, their location, hardware, software, and qualifications helps help desk agents handle calls promptly and effectively.
• Knowledge management provides vital information to help desk staff – and to automatic systems – increasing the chance of the right decision being made quickly. Help desk software with knowledge management speeds up issue resolution and request fulfillment, improving customer experience, reducing costs, and minimizing business disruptions.

The help desk software solutions available now offer so much more than that of the noughties. As technology has expanded ever further into our everyday lives, so help desk software has too. The help desk software lets users enter and track tickets through a self-service portal on any device. The help desk software still supports help desk staff in taking calls and recording, allocating, and monitoring progress on tickets. It also allows for ever-increasing automation, capturing tickets directly from customers or technology, and allocating them according to preset rules, priorities, and circumstances. Notifications alert end users, agents, and managers when ticket statuses change or service level targets are at risk.

The modern organization relies on fit-for-purpose software throughout the enterprise to support every aspect of its operations. Optimal help desk performance greatly improves when the right software is available to assist agents and end-users.

ITIL is the IT service management (ITSM) best practice framework formerly known as the IT Infrastructure Library.