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Help Desk Software vs Service Desk Software – Both software’s gives any business the edge in efficiency and productivity. It supports a business’s customer service efforts and aids the employees in their task delivery.

You’ve probably heard the terms help desk and service desk thrown around as if they are interchangeable terms. However, each software has its own distinct capabilities and differences. Let’s take a closer look at the powerful tasks each of these platforms can perform.

Help Desk Software vs Service Desk Software:

Help Desk Software

A help desk software or ticketing system is mainly focused on meeting the needs of the end-user. It’s aim is to manage and resolve issues, or incidents, by acting as a bridge between end users and support staff in order to keep operations running as smoothly as possible.

Here are the top features of a help desk software:

Automation

One of the best assets of a help desk is the automation. Don’t bother manually handling many of those routine tasks when the help desk gives you a hand. If you deal with certain types of tickets the same way every time, then simply create a rule. The help desk will do its part and perform the same action every time the rule is met.

Multi-Channel Capable

With the flow of work coming from all directions, you need a software platform that is user-friendly to all. No matter what platform people use, you want a system that will interface with everyone effortlessly. A help desk such as the one offered by Vision Helpdesk does just that.

Ticket Management

When you manage a busy business, tickets can begin to pile up if you don’t have a robust ticket management system. Vision Helpdesk offers a ticket management system that works in combination with the automation feature. This means tickets coming can be routed automatically if you make a rule telling the software how to handle the ticket. But even if you don’t make a rule, there are still many automated elements of this software that make it a boost to your customer support efforts.

Workflow Efficiency

Manage those pesky tasks with the aid of a powerful task management function. Project managers can seamlessly assign tasks to the appropriate individuals and then keep a close tab on what’s happening. Receive updates about the status of the project and also view the comments of those who are working on the assignments. Staff can even attach a file to a task when necessary for further clarify a situation.

Service Level Agreement & Escalation

Sometimes you need to make a commitment to some of your customers, especially the bigger accounts who purchase from you regularly. In these cases, they may require a service level agreement (SLA). If you can guarantee them a level of service you discover more satisfied customers. How does a help desk aid in an SLA? You can create a rule-based automation within the software, which escalates a ticket to a manager. For example, you could have a rule that states tickets from a particular company must be followed up with a response within one day. If this action doesn’t occur, the ticket is forwarded to another person higher up the chain command. This ensures the customer doesn’t slip through the cracks. It also means management won’t need to be micromanaging everyone. When a ticket isn’t being addressed, then you’ll know about it.

Social Hub for Employees

Keep your employees in the loop with a designated social collaboration platform. Staff can discuss projects with one another without having to get up, email, or call the others. You can even share information including videos over the social hub. Attach a hashtag to your topic or search for the trending topic at the moment. All conversations and files are hosted privately and securely so you need not worry about the information being accessible to anyone except your staff. In fact, you can customise communications so that only those you designate will see it or allow it to be available to all staff.

Gamification to Increase Engagement

Employees often times have difficulty getting and staying motivated. That’s why gamification is such an important tool to use in the workplace. Vision Helpdesk offers a gamification venue for staff whereby they can earn badges and move up to higher levels. Group competition is also enhanced with the gamifying dashboard. This encourages staff to produce their best.

Please find the detailed list of help desk features.

Service Desk Software

A service desk software can do everything that a help desk software does while also enabling the planning, structuring and delivery of IT services at the same time, rather than simply reacting to incidents.

Similar to help desk software, a service desk is also a single point of contact, but in this case it serves as such for end-users as well as for IT service providers.

The additional components of service desk software are as below –

Asset Management

Make the best decisions for your business’s spending with the asset tracking feature in the service desk. This function not only breaks down all your tangible expenditures for you but it shows you the cost of services associated with your IT department. Depreciation factors in for a more holistic view of your budget.

Incident Management

Define and track incidents in your business operations with ease with the aid of the service desk. In addition, when you log incidents into the database, they are automatically linked to each other so you are not doing redundant work. For example, if several incidents arise about accessing a software, these can be all addressed simultaneously when you find the solution to this issue.

Problem Management

When you receive an incident ticket, no matter what type it is, you know that is just a symptom of the problem. So, your service desk helps you with problem management by identifying all related incidents and finding the root problem. After the root problem is solved, the software goes back to all the reported incidents and can resolve those too. If you don’t have a good problem management system, then you are constantly putting out fires one at a time that may very well be related. Instead, you can solve the underlying issue, which solves all related incidents. It also benefits future situations because you can look back at what’s been done before.

Change Management

When making IT changes within the business, it’s important to have a smooth rollout. You don’t want to disrupt the workflow in such a way that resources are wasted or time is lost. With the change management feature, you will be able to make changes in a systematic way. The system allows the Change Advisory Board to make approvals. In addition, it also provides an analysis of the cost-effectiveness, the impact of implementation, and more.

Release Management

Once the IT changes are approved, it’s time to move on to the release of whatever software, hardware, or IT changes you are implementing. A smooth transition is critical so that your business dealing do not come to a halt. Through the innovative release management feature in a service desk, project managers can see just how previous incidents will be impacted by the change and release of the new system. This is an important piece of the data because if an incident still persists after release, then IT needs to determine if some other solutions are necessary.

Please find the detailed list of service desk features & also check how to streamline your business with ITIL-ITSM service desk software.

Are you ready to find out more about help desks and service desks? These features only represent a portion of the many benefits business’s gains with the CRM software. Connect with your Vision Helpdesk representative today for more information.