What Is a Service Desk?

A service desk is the single point of contact between an organisation’s IT department (or any support team) and its users. It handles requests, incidents, and questions — and it does so in a structured, trackable way so nothing falls through the cracks.

Service Desk vs Help Desk

These terms are often used interchangeably, but there is a meaningful difference:

In short, a help desk reacts to problems. A service desk manages the entire relationship between IT and the business.

Core Functions of a Service Desk

1. Incident Management — Log, prioritise, and resolve disruptions to normal service
2. Request Fulfillment — Handle standard requests (new accounts, software installs, access changes)
3. Problem Management — Identify root causes of recurring incidents
4. Change Management — Track and approve changes that could affect live services
5. Knowledge Management — Maintain a library of known issues and resolutions

Setting Up a Service Desk in Chronodesk

1. Go to Settings → Service Desk and enable the service desk module
2. Create your ticket categories (e.g. Hardware, Software, Access, Network)
3. Set SLA rules — response and resolution targets by priority level
4. Add your support team and define who handles which category
5. Publish your customer portal URL so users know where to submit tickets

Your service desk will be ready to receive tickets in under an hour.