As companies scale, one big question inevitably comes up: how do you keep your service desk running smoothly without losing your mind, or your customers’ patience? We’ve been there. But with AI’s influence squeezing itself into more of our collective day-to-day, efficiency is no longer a nice-to-have, it’s essential. An organization’s service desk is at the center of everything that needs unblocking.
Let’s start with the basics. According to ITIL 4, a service desk is “The implementation and management of quality IT services that meet the needs of the business.” Translation: it’s where people go when they need help.
From fixing login issues to handling major incidents, the service desk keeps everything moving by managing service requests and troubleshooting problems. Whether you’re supporting employees, partners, or any other internal stakeholders, the mission is the same: provide top-notch service, fast.
In short, help desks are usually more tactical, they focus on fixing immediate issues. Service desks take a more strategic role, supporting broader business needs and aligning with multiple IT Service Management (ITSM) practices. Think of the help desk as putting out fires and the service desk as fire prevention and long-term planning.
Your service desk is the face of IT for most of your company. It’s where first impressions are made and where efficiency can make or break productivity. Based on our own experience growing fast and scaling support across the globe, here are some battle-tested best practices to help you run a world-class service desk.
If your ITSM practice isn’t mature, it’s unsurprising to find that email and spreadsheets are still the go-to systems for IT staff; not exactly ideal for a support team. For an intuitive, fully-featured service desk that scales with your business, we recommend Jira Service Management to take full advantage of features like self-service, SLA tracking, and team collaboration.
We also recommend leaning on knowledge-centered support, which basically means creating and using knowledge base articles as a part of solving requests. Companies that lean into this benefit by having answers to common questions at the ready for next time. This information is specific to your organization and also enables AI Agents to lend a hand. If you’re using JSM for service management, Confluence is an easy shoe-in with native integration.
TL:DR; smart tools plus smart habits = better service.
The number of tickets a service team gets is one thing, but their collective variety can really complicate efficient service request management. As organizations scale, infrastructure starts to span from data centers and virtual machines to travel booking tools and office Wi-Fi. IT teams that handle everything mean constant context-switching and burnout.
One way to solve for this is to divide and conquer. Split your support staff into specialized teams, organized with their respective service projects in JSM for less chaos, more expertise, and faster resolution times. Everyone wins.
Asking for help should be easy, no scavenger hunt required. We build central help centers using Jira Service Management that have the capability to link IT with other key service teams like Legal and HR. One-stop shop, all services.
Access for employees is easy; just visit the customer portal. No more Slack threads asking, “Who do I talk to about my VPN?” This approach to Enterprise Service Management is about providing the benefits of a mature service request management implementation to all corners of the organization.
Believe it or not, 67% of customers prefer self-service when it’s done right. That means making it easy for people to find answers on their own through a help portal, FAQs, or knowledge base articles. Investing in a clean, intuitive, self-service portal that connects with an internal knowledge base and Q&A resources sounds like a big undertaking, but it’s an almost out-of-the-box feature of JSM (Praecipio can help with the minutiae). The result? Fewer tickets, faster answers, and happier employees.
Naturally, organizations want their support teams to deliver great service, which is a lot easier to do when service teams know the goal. It’s crucial to set clear, but customizable SLAs that are easy for analysts to follow and flexible enough for managers to tweak. No more one-size-fits-none targets.
Random, pointless KPIs are annoying to just about everyone, from the person collecting them to the executive hearing the report. Best to focus instead on what actually improves the customer experience.
That means spotting trends, digging into what causes spikes and dips in support volume, and asking why things happen, not just what happened. This shift from firefighting to proactive incident prevention means things don’t just get answered in the moment; they run more smoothly overall, making everyone happier. It also helps tell a clearer story to leadership. Rather than drowning them in numbers, we can show them what’s working, what’s not, and how we’re making things better.
At the end of the day, growing pains are part of this journey. What matters is having the right tools, the right mindset, and a smart strategy for scaling support. When your service desk is set up for success, your whole organization benefits. It’s also beneficial to have an ITSM specialized partner in your corner to assist with an implementation.