IT help desk full guide: Definition, features, benefits

Your IT department plays a critical role in keeping your business running smoothly. From setting access parameters and resetting passwords to troubleshooting larger issues, IT teams ensure employees have the tools and resources they need to be productive. However, they’re often under pressure to handle a high volume of requests with limited resources. This is where IT help desk software comes in.

Modern, AI-driven IT help desk software allows your IT team to provide excellent technical support to employees, customers, business partners, and more. They can efficiently scale their operations and keep costs down with a flexible, easy-to-use solution like Zendesk.

In this guide, we’ll explore how a help desk can streamline your internal IT support processes and equip IT teams with secure tools for effective issue resolution. We’ll also compare IT help desks to other solutions, highlight essential features to look for, and share best practices for delivering top-tier employee service.

More in this guide:

• What is an IT help desk?
• How does an IT help desk work?
• IT help desk vs. other solutions
• Internal help desk support system features
• Benefits of IT help desk services
• IT support desk best practices
• Customer stories
• Frequently asked questions
• Try AI-powered IT help desk software for free

IT help desk software is a tool that centralizes and streamlines the management of technical support requests. It enables IT teams to efficiently track, prioritize, and resolve issues reported by employees, customers, and business partners. This software often includes features such as ticketing systems, knowledge bases, and automation capabilities to enhance support efficiency and improve user satisfaction. By ensuring that IT systems run smoothly, the help desk plays a crucial role in maintaining productivity and minimizing downtime in an organization.

IT departments commonly use this software to provide services to their internal teams, including:

• Server maintenance
• Software deployment
• Hardware fixes
• System administration
• Incident and asset management
• Change management

An IT help desk operates as the central point of contact for technical support within an organization. Here's a step-by-step overview of how it works:

1. Issue reporting: Users report issues through various channels such as email, phone, chat, or a self-service portal. Each issue is logged into the help desk software, creating a support ticket.
2. Ticket categorization: The help desk software categorizes and prioritizes the tickets based on the issue type, severity, and urgency. This ensures that critical problems are addressed promptly.
3. Assignment and routing: Tickets are assigned to appropriate IT team members or departments. Automation tools within the software can route tickets to the right personnel based on predefined rules.
4. Issue resolution: IT staff work on resolving the issues. They can use the knowledge base to find solutions to common problems, collaborate with other team members, and update the ticket status as they progress.
5. Communication: The help desk software facilitates communication between IT staff and users. Users receive updates on their ticket status, and IT staff can request additional information if needed.
6. Monitoring and escalation: The software monitors the progress of each ticket. If an issue is not resolved within a certain timeframe, it can be escalated to higher-level support or management to ensure timely resolution.
7. Closure: Once an issue is resolved, the ticket is closed. The resolution details are documented for future reference, and users may be asked to provide feedback on their experience.
8. Reporting and analysis: The help desk software generates reports and analytics on various metrics, such as response times, resolution times, and user satisfaction. This data helps the IT team identify trends, improve processes, and enhance overall support quality.

AI-powered tools can greatly improve IT issue resolution by automating support, assisting service teams, and optimizing workflows.

Here is some key IT help desk terminology that’s helpful to know.

• IT help desk: The first point of contact for end users experiencing technical problems. Functions include issue tracking, ticket management, troubleshooting, and user support.
• IT service desk (ITSD): An expanded help desk with capabilities such as self-service, workflows, and proactive support methods to resolve issues quickly, maintain services, manage incidents, and address issues impacting business goals.
• IT service management (ITSM): A framework for delivering IT services, encompassing problem management, incident management, asset management, and service request management.
• Desktop support: Focuses on resolving hardware issues, such as fixing desktop computers and laptops.

The right IT help desk features can boost productivity, expedite issue resolution, and reduce operational costs for IT service teams. Here are a few key features to consider when choosing an IT support help desk solution for your business.

Omnichannel ticketing system

An omnichannel ticketing system allows users to submit IT service requests and incidents through their preferred channels, such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, self-service portals, email, live chat, WhatsApp, and the phone.

This approach consolidates all requests into a unified workspace, enabling IT teams to manage everything from one place without losing context or conversation history.

Integrating ticketing systems with tools like Workday provides service teams with relevant employee details, such as role, title, and location, directly within their workspace. This boosts efficiency by enabling service teams to manage issues centrally while delivering more personalized and accurate support.

AI-powered insights

AI-powered insights and employee context enhance IT ticketing systems by providing service teams with intelligent insights, similar tickets, and relevant macros for faster issue resolution.

For example, AI can summarize a user's request, identify its intent and sentiment, and surface resolutions for similar issues. This allows IT teams to efficiently reference related solutions. Additionally, AI can suggest relevant pre-written replies or knowledge base articles tailored to the specific issue, further streamlining the support process.

AI-powered self-service

A knowledge base empowers users to resolve issues independently, giving your IT team valuable time back. If your team doesn’t already have one, you can easily build a knowledge base with the help of AI. Generative AI tools can transform just a few bullet points into a comprehensive article. AI can also identify your most common IT service requests, allowing you to fill content gaps with articles addressing those FAQs.

Once you have a knowledge base, you can enhance your self-service offerings by connecting an AI-powered bot. For instance, Zendesk AI agents can be set up in minutes by linking them to your help center. These bots are pre-trained on IT intents and can autonomously resolve complex IT service requests all on their own, leveraging your help center to ensure accurate support.

Workflow automations

Workflow automations are among the most essential IT help desk features, enhancing service efficiency in several ways:

• Setting alerts and notifications for overdue or escalated tickets, ensuring your team addresses them promptly
• Intelligently tagging and routing tickets to the appropriate team based on intent, sentiment, and language, further improving service efficiency
• Managing outages with SLA policies by automatically prioritizing outage tickets and keeping agents informed of their remaining resolution time

For example, The Wharton School’s IT support team set up triggers to route tickets to the relevant subgroup so that requests go to the right team and are prioritized properly.

“We rely on automations and triggers to zip requests over to the right place,” said Sharon Steptoe-Smith, IT administrative coordinator at The Wharton School. “Nothing lies around.”

Reporting and analytics

Reporting and analytics tools are crucial for uncovering trends, gathering insights, and improving your IT support operations. Real-time reports provide immediate insights on help desk metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs), such as your most common issues and incidents, when they occur, and how quickly your team resolves them. You can customize dashboards to highlight the metrics that matter most to you and share them with relevant stakeholders.

Additionally, AI-powered reporting can further enhance decision-making and service optimization. For example:

• Intent suggestions can inform admins about what to automate.
• AI can suggest macros based on the intent of employee inquiries.
• AI-powered quality assurance tools can monitor user sentiment and highlight areas needing improvement.

Apps, integrations, and customizations

Apps and integrations enable you to connect your existing business tools to your IT help desk, streamlining data and creating a customized solution that can scale to new use cases. Solutions like Zendesk offer a robust library of over 1,500 pre-built integrations, allowing you to seamlessly connect with your critical systems without needing technical expertise.

Additionally, Zendesk supports open APIs, providing the flexibility to tailor the system to your specific needs. This adaptability empowers you to create a solution that perfectly fits your requirements.

Collaboration tools

IT help desk software enhances team efficiency with collaboration tools. For example, Zendesk enables side conversations within support tickets, keeping discussions focused and organized. You can also follow or CC tickets to ensure everyone stays informed.

This seamless collaboration extends beyond the IT team. You can easily invite other departments into the conversation by incorporating the necessary expertise to facilitate faster resolutions.

The right IT help desk can significantly enhance your IT operations, improving agent efficiency and boosting employee satisfaction. Here are some common benefits of IT help desk systems.

Boost productivity

IT help desks boost productivity by centralizing and streamlining the management of technical issues, enabling faster and more efficient resolution. They utilize automation to handle routine tasks, prioritize and route tickets, and send notifications for urgent matters, reducing the workload on IT staff.

Providing a single point of contact for all technical support needs allows IT help desks to minimize downtime and ensure that employees can focus on their core responsibilities, leading to overall enhanced productivity.

Protect sensitive employee data

IT help desk software with enterprise-grade privacy and security features can safeguard employee and business data. Choose a solution that offers robust data protection, such as single sign-on and configurable password rules. Ensure it encrypts sensitive data and adheres to industry security standards for peace of mind.

For instance, Zendesk provides granular access control within a single platform, allowing departments to have separate access to tickets and minimizing data exposure. Additionally, two-factor authentication for both IT specialists and employees adds an extra layer of protection against cyber threats.

Streamline operations with AI and automation

Businesses constantly strive to optimize internal operations, and IT services are a prime candidate for AI and automation. AI-powered IT help desk solutions can streamline your operations in several ways, including:

• Deflecting tickets to AI-powered agents that can resolve IT requests independently in multiple languages
• Automatically routing tickets to the appropriate team, improving service efficiency
• Suggesting relevant macros for common IT requests
• Creating help center content using generative AI tools, enabling employees to quickly find answers on their own

Scale quickly and efficiently

IT teams are under pressure to expand their operations while keeping costs low. IT help desks enable IT teams to scale quickly and efficiently by centralizing and automating support processes, streamlining ticket management, and improving resource allocation.

Features such as automated ticket routing, AI-powered responses, and self-service options allow IT teams to handle a higher volume of requests without increasing headcount. Real-time analytics and reporting provide insights into performance and areas for improvement, facilitating proactive management and continuous optimization.

By leveraging these capabilities, IT help desks ensure that teams can maintain high service levels and adapt to growing demands effectively.

Here are some IT support best practices to help you successfully implement or optimize your IT help desk:

• Leverage AI agents to deliver answers faster: Zendesk AI agents can deliver personalized, 24/7 support all on their own.
• Build a help center: Create a help center or self-service portal to empower employees to resolve issues independently, reducing the task load on your IT team.
• Support preferred channels: Enable users to reach support through their preferred communication channels, such as Slack or Microsoft Teams.
• Optimize onboarding and offboarding: Enhance your onboarding and offboarding processes by optimizing workflows, resolving inefficiencies with data-backed insights, and making support easily accessible.
• Choose easy-to-use yet scalable software: Complex IT help desks often have long implementation timelines and require technical teams for deployment and maintenance, which can be costly. Opt for solutions that prioritize both ease of use and scalability, allowing you to start reaping the benefits immediately and continue gaining: Integrate employee service and customer service operations to streamline processes and reduce support costs, breaking down silos and allowing teams to share knowledge and optimize resources more freely.

From boosting productivity to reducing costs and enhancing service quality, businesses of all sizes rely on Zendesk to support their IT service operations. Read on to discover what success with Zendesk looks like.

OneMedical

“As a technology company, the numbers are what drive what gets done. If there is a user problem that needs cross-functional support, we have the data we need to go to the decision-maker and say, ‘Hey, this is how many people were affected, and this is why we need to solve this problem immediately.’”

Ian Wolfley, Manager of Product and Technology Support at One Medical.

Tesco

“We’re constantly striving to improve the experience our colleagues have when they need help with something, and Zendesk is a big part of that. Delivering a quality experience is very much a top priority.”

Adam Bruce, Head of Product – Service Desk, Help & Automation at Tesco

The ACLU

“Ultimately, Zendesk is going to allow us to become a leaner and more efficient support organization because people can get from point A to the answer they need a lot faster.”

Justin Birdsong, Associate Director of Enterprise Database Systems at ACLU