What is a Service Desk?
Definition
Central help desk for customer support tickets, issue tracking, and service request management. Service desks provide single point of contact for technical issues, questions, and service requests. They manage ticket lifecycle from submission through resolution, escalate critical issues, track SLA compliance, and provide self-service knowledge bases. Modern service desks integrate with incident management, problem management, and change management processes using ITIL frameworks.
Why This Matters
Centralized service desks provide single point of contact for issues and requests, improving response time and resolution consistency. Service desk quality—ticket management, knowledge bases, escalation procedures—directly impacts user satisfaction and productivity. Organizations should evaluate service desk maturity through customer references and demonstration of ticket management processes. Poor service desk experiences drive user frustration and workaround development.
Related Terms
Showing semantically related terms from our RFP knowledge graph. Priority connections are highlighted.
Essential Connections
Help Desk
Software Features & Capabilities
Customer support software managing service requests through ticket systems, knowledge bases, automated routing, SLA tracking, and multi-channel support (email, chat, phone).
Technical Support
Implementation & Deployment
Vendor assistance for troubleshooting, bug fixes, and system issues provided through ticketing systems, phone, chat, or email.
Customer Support
Software Features & Capabilities
Software enabling service teams to assist customers through ticketing, knowledge bases, live chat, chatbots, and self-service portals.
Support Services
Implementation & Deployment
Ongoing technical assistance and issue resolution provided after implementation.
Ticketing System
Software Features & Capabilities
Software tracking customer issues from submission through resolution with unique identifiers, priority assignment, workflow automation, agent assignment, and status updates.
Service Level Agreement
Pricing & Total Cost
Contractual commitments defining expected service quality including uptime guarantees, response times, resolution timeframes, and penalties for non-compliance.
Response Time
Implementation & Deployment
The maximum time for vendor acknowledgment of support tickets measured from submission to first response.
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