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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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