Difference Between an IT Service Desk and a Helpdesk or Call Center

Businesses often use the terms "call center," "Helpdesk Services," and "customer service" interchangeably, which can be confusing. ITIL considers call centers and support services as limited types of services, offering only part of what a support service provides. With ITIL taking a service-centric perspective and focusing on IT, it makes sense. For many companies, the definition of ITIL does not correspond to operational practices, which makes the distinction much more complicated. Here are explanations of the technical support and contact center features to help you create a contrast to an IT service center.

Technical support

A help desk is a resource designed to provide the client or internal user with information and assistance related to the processes, products, and services of a company. The purpose of technical support is to provide a centralized resource for answering questions, solving problems, and providing solutions to known issues. Common examples of professional support services include specialized support centers, product/warranty support functions, benefits offices, and facility service centers. Technical support can be provided through a variety of channels, including physical locations, toll-free numbers, websites, instant messages, or email.

Call center

A call center or contact center is a central point to manage contacts and interactions with customers. Office responsible for handling a large number of requests, usually by phone (but may also include letters, faxes, social media, instant messages, or emails). Inbound call centers are often used for product support, customer service, order processing, and phone service 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Outgoing call centers are used for telemarketing, debt collection, and market research. A company may have multiple call centers that support different parts of business operations (including IT) and can be managed internally or through an external agency.

As you can see, there are many overlaps between the definitions of the helpdesk, call center, and IT services. The distinction between them focuses on the scope of what the function covers and the way they are structured:

A helpdesk focuses on providing "help" and "fault repair" assistance. Support services do not need to focus on IT and can be used to support exceptions to normal business operations. They can be physical locations that interact directly with applicants in person or remote/virtual areas using technologies such as telephone, email, chat, and other technologies to facilitate virtual interaction.

Call centers are the most comprehensive in the scope of the issues they cover, including technical and non-technical subjects. Call centers do not personally interact with applicants and always involve some form of intermediate technology to facilitate participation.

IT service offices focus only on supporting IT services but deal with responsive "help" services and routine tasks such as provisioning resources, managing access, etc. IT service desks can be physical locations that users can visit in person or remotely, such as a call center. ITIL experts can say that technical support is tactical, while technical support is strategic; It varies from organization to organization.