From the course: IT Help Desk for Beginners

What is an IT help desk? - Windows Tutorial

From the course: IT Help Desk for Beginners

What is an IT help desk?

- [Instructor] According to Zendesk, "A helpdesk is a centralized team within a company that serves employees or customers en masse, using a software product to organize conversations." It's a place people go to to get help. If a user has a product that doesn't work as expected or they need training on how to use it. That is a lot of words, but what does that mean? An IT help desk in an organization is very much different than most other types of help desks. It's designed to assist workers in their own company as opposed to a help desk open to the public about a specific product. That means there may be some security checks to confirm the identity of the user, as well as some expectations on the user side that the company's help desk will know how to resolve their issue, or will find someone who does. In a public help desk, the customer also expects assistance but may not get it and there may not be much recourse for resolving a problem. In a corporate help desk workers need to produce, so unresolved issues will get escalated either by the help desk team or by the department head of the person looking for help. For a new employee that's in IT, the Help Desk is almost always the first position to start their careers. It doesn't matter the size of the organization. You'll be on the phones taking calls and assisting users as your career will eventually take off. As you climb the IT job position ladder you'll find that everyone continues to be on the help desk in one way or another. There are levels to IT support. The first level is level one help desk. Level two is typically someone who manages users but still takes calls for executives who want to speak with more experienced staff, as well as taking escalated calls from level one. Level three takes calls escalated from level two as well as manages many IT projects and may also handle some security and development tasks as needed. It really depends on the size and scope of the company. The bottom line of help desk support in any average company is this. A call comes into the help desk or one is sent by email, text or direct communication through a web portal. The help desk staff then make sure to update a ticket or create a ticket or modify one. The IT staff then contacts the user with the issue either by phone, email, or by other means to try to resolve the issue. Some help desk staff may also go on site to the user's desk if warranted. When the issue gets resolved or escalated the IT staff edits the ticket with resolution information or escalation information and then the ticket is closed or transferred. You'll learn a foundation of IT support when working in the help desk. I recall my days on help desk many years ago at an insurance company when I first started out in IT. It gave me great experience and led me to better positions over time in the IT field.

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