The service desk is a function and not a process. A function is a defined group of people who carry out a process or processes. The service desk typically conducts a number of processes, in particular incident management and request fulfilment.
The service desk is made up of a group of staff trained to deal with service events. service desk staff will have access to the necessary tools to manage these events.
For most IT users within an organisation, the service desk will be their only contact with the IT Department. Therefore, the impression made by the service desk in the handling of events will have a large influence on how the IT Department as a whole is viewed within that organisation.
The service desk should be the single point of contact for IT users within an organisation. The size and structure of a service desk will be driven by the size and structure of the organisation it supports. The number and skills of the IT user com- munity and their geographical spread are factors.
The service desk is the single point of contact for all IT users wishing to log an inci- dent, report an event, initiate a change request, make a service request or raise a query regarding any of the services that the IT Department provides.