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7.6.1.2 Objectives of a Service Desk<br />

Chapter 7 ■ Service Operations<br />

The service desk exists to serve the purpose of being a single point of contact for IT end<br />

users. They primarily han<strong>dl</strong>e incidents and service requests but can also be equipped to<br />

take care of changes and <strong>com</strong>municate with users and other parties.<br />

The other objectives of a service desk are:<br />

• Log, categorize, and prioritize incidents and service requests<br />

• Act as the first level of support for incident diagnosis and<br />

investigation<br />

• Fulfill simple service requests that do not require technical<br />

expertise<br />

• Resolve incidents and fulfill service requests during the first<br />

interaction with users<br />

• Communicate with users on updates to incidents and service<br />

requests, such as confirmation of incident resolution and delay in<br />

stock arrivals<br />

• Provide functional escalation of incidents and service requests for<br />

speedy turnaround<br />

• Perform customer satisfaction surveys and related feedback<br />

activities<br />

• Update CMDB (depends on the ITIL design and implementation)<br />

7.6.1.3 Service Desk Structures<br />

I am assuming that you have worked in more than one organization. Compare your<br />

current organization’s structure with the previous organization’s structure. There were<br />

definitely distinct differences between the two structures, right? Why do organizations<br />

choose to build their own structure and not follow a set structure based on certain<br />

standardized principles? The answer is strategy.<br />

Strategy drives how organizations are to be structured. Some structures work better<br />

than others, while others might bring in synergy, generating more value with the same set<br />

of people. It is observed that traditional organizations typically opt for highly hierarchical<br />

structure, while start-ups and new age organizations go for flat organizations. There<br />

are advantages and disadvantages with both. As long as the advantages outweigh the<br />

disadvantages, organizations are convinced of their justification to opt for it.<br />

As the service desk is manned by people, lots of them, it is imperative that the<br />

structuring needs some serious thinking. There can be a number of ways a service desk<br />

can be structured. As long as the core objectives of the service desk are met, it can be<br />

structured as needed. In this book, I will discuss three <strong>com</strong>mon types of service desk<br />

structures. This is an important topic from the service management perspective and also<br />

from an examination standpoint.<br />

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