Five Surprising Reasons You Should Use Service Desk

There are a lot of top ten lists out there, but you're busy. Plus, you already know you need a service desk solution that uses IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) v3 best practices to deliver services that closely align to your organization's business needs and demands. Service Desk does that and more. Here are 5 reasons you don't already know that demonstrate why Service Desk should be your service desk solution.

1. Take a Vacation

   With a never-ending stream of user requests and other issues, you can forget taking a day off. You're lucky to get lunch. Service Desk uses ITIL processes to streamline your helpdesk and give you a break.

   As the person in charge of the service desk, you have to keep systems running and users happy all day, every day. That doesn't mean you have to work around the clock, though. It just means you need your service desk solution to simplify the flow of user requests. Service Desk provides a self-service portal for provisioning and managing requests, so fewer users come to you for help. It also optimizes your processes and guides your technicians through these best practices with easy to follow templates. Finally, by displaying information from incident, problem, and change records, Service Desk gives your technicians the knowledge they need to act fast, thus reducing resolution times. These features mean you're more likely to see a dashboard full of green indicators, and a green dashboard is your green light to finally take some time off.

2. Stand Up to Your Boss

   You may run your organization's most important department, but that doesn't mean your budget is safe. Get the knowledge you need to prove your value with Service Desk.

   Your boss wants to know what you've done for him today. What do you say? If you have Service Desk, you have all the metrics and numbers you need to prove the value you've provided to your organization over the past year, the past month, or just this morning. Service Desk allows you to assign a monetary value to services and service components and allocate costs based on accurate usage and warranty information. You can also define, manage, and track service delivery levels in accordance with ITIL best practices. By using the solution's scheduled reporting feature, you can deliver this information to any executive, whenever you need to. When the service desk runs well, nobody notices, but that doesn't mean you can't justify your work. The next time your boss asks what you've done for him today, use Service Desk to show him just how valuable you are.

3. Make Informed Decisions

   Users are howling for help, but you know that knowing the details is just as important as acting fast. With the information Service Desk gives you, you can do both.

   When it comes to IT, you're the decision maker. We know how heavy that burden can be, which is why we designed Service Desk to provide you with the information you need to make informed decisions about your IT environment. Service Desk performs ITIL v3 incident, problem, and change management processes to efficiently store the information you need to see all aspects of a configuration change, service problem, or other IT issue. Service Desk comes with a configuration management database in which it stores this information for easy access. The relationship impact map in Service Desk further helps you see the effects of your choices. It presents your IT infrastructure visually so you and your technicians can see how components relate to one another. An uninformed decision is as bad as no decision at all, so don't roll the dice with your service desk solution or your IT infrastructure choices.

4. Share Your Power

   Your users want you to solve their problems. You want them to leave you and the service desk alone. With Service Desk, everyone can get what they want.

   By enabling users and service desk technicians to do more for themselves, Service Desk helps your organization run smoother while making life easier for you. Users can order services from a service catalog and use a self-service portal to answer their own questions, provision applications, and track their requests. Empowering users is just a part of what Service Desk can do. Your techs can download their calendars to any device they want, customize their dashboards, and benefit from streamlined ITIL workflows. Service Desk can even help techs seek out the appropriate line manager for line manager approvals so they don't spend all day hunting for one individual. By making your IT staff more aware of business processes and the business impact of services, Service Desk can empower techs to help users get what they want. Instead of you having to be there to hold everyone's hand, Service Desk lets them help themselves.

5. Get More Mileage from Your IT Infrastructure

   The cost of doing business keeps going up, just like gas prices. Use Service Desk to take your existing infrastructure and IT staff further so you organization can keep driving towards its goals.

   Tight IT budgets require that any service desk solution not only costs less, but makes the business run better too. Unlike other service desk offerings, Service Desk doesn't come with install fees, service charges or charges for core features. Service Desk also works with multiple directory services so you only need one solution for your entire environment. By helping align IT services and processes with business requirements, expectations, and objectives, Service Desk helps you deliver the services that bring your organization returns on its investments. To get more miles from your IT machine, Service Desk features knowledge management capabilities that let your IT staff get the most from their experiences and build a valuable repository of information. Most importantly, Service Desk helps you provide higher quality, more efficient, and more effective services that can increase your organization's business revenue, profitability, and productivity and keep you rolling down the road to success.