Top 10 Considerations When Selecting IT Service Desk Software

Read the document attached below regarding a survey that was conducted about the top 10 considerations that have to be made when selecting IT Service Desk Software (the software that a service desk uses when supporting customers).

1. After reading the document, review the considerations for the selection of IT Service Desk Software. Do you agree with the order of priority in which considerations are presented in this document. For each of the article’s 10 considerations listed below, write at least two sentences detailing why or why not you think it is important to a company. (20 points)

Implementation of Best Practices

Configurability and Customization of the tool and Integration

Modern vs Aged technology

Web-enabled and Multi-location

Scalability

Company Focus and Product Stability

Ease of Use

Customer Service

Software Pricing and Total Cost of Ownership

Intangibles

2. Why do vendors of IT Service Desk software focus so heavily on the ITIL Framework? How would the ITIL framework help a typical Service Center to better utilize the software they purchase? (2 points)

3. Why do you think organizations can't easily transition from old systems and continue to run them? Why is it so difficult for the organizations to retire their old legacy systems and replace them with the new ones? (1 points)

4. Why is Web-Enabled and Multi-location one of the key factors when considering the Service Desk Software tools? (1 points)

5. Is ease of use an important factor to consider? Why or why not? (1 point)

So many choices…. So much confusion …. Where does an IT professional even begin when trying to evaluate the Why’s? How’s? What’s? and Who’s? associated with evaluating a Help Desk / Service Desk / IT Service & Support or IT Service Management software solution? Geeez… it took 4 different phrases to even describe the space, and I didn’t even use Call Center. Oh, and by the way … are we logging calls, tickets, or incidents? And very important terms for our industry have yet to be used – like Incident Management, Problem Management, Change Management, Configuration Management, Release Management, etc., etc., etc. With so much “management” in the terminology, one would think that evaluating software solutions for this industry would be simple … but it’s not!

It’s hard to even know what word or phrase to type into a Google search. And software vendors must use pages of “keywords” for their online advertising. So it is no wonder with this rapidly evolving industry that it can feel overwhelming for an IT consumer to try to fairly compare the apples and oranges of what IT software vendors are offering. With all the changes, it also is difficult to determine what truly matters when trying to implement a world-class Help Desk.

For simplicity’s sake, the term “Help Desk” is often used in this article as an umbrella for all of the above terms. Granted, this may not be currently accurate, but I have chosen to use the “Help Desk” phrase with “Service Desk” interchangeably, maybe for the last time in such an article, perhaps out of pure nostalgia .… Oh yes – the good ‘ol days! But it definitely is time for all of us to embrace and celebrate the “Service Desk,” and some of the wonderful changes that have come to this industry via revolutionary new technology, best practices, and standardized terminology.