Service Desk Articles

ITSM explained - what is ITSM?

What is ITSM? Definition, Benefits, and Best Practices (2026 Guide)

What is ITSM? Why is it important? What are its benefits, and what are the quick wins? This article covers the essentials for anyone building or evaluating an ITSM function, from the definition and its history to the practical outcomes IT teams can expect once the discipline is running properly across the organization.
Service Model Development Using ITIL 4

Service Model Development Using ITIL 4 for Effective Service Delivery

If you’re a large organization, or an IT service provider offering services to large enterprises, reviewing your standard service model on a regular basis is imperative to keep it aligned with your business and IT strategy. Graham Heard explains why the review is essential, and how to create a service model if you don’t already have one in place.
Kotter Change Management

Kotter Change Management: How to Apply the 8 Steps Successfully

Kotter’s 8-step Model is one of the most widely adopted approaches to change management globally. This article walks through what each of the eight steps involves, how they connect, and how ITSM and change enablement teams can put the model to work without reducing it to a checklist. It also covers where the model is most often misapplied.
Define, Measure, and Report IT Service Availability

How to Define, Measure, and Report IT Service Availability That Truly Reflects Customer Value

To measure, document, and report IT service availability in ways that are useful to your organization and its customers, you need to do two things. Stuart Rance walks through what those two things are, why the standard availability reports most organizations produce fail to give a useful picture, and how to get to something better.
ITIL 4 Service Value Chain

ITIL 4 Service Value Chain: Model, Activities, and Examples

Daniel Breston takes a closer look at the ITIL 4 Service Value Chain and asks you to observe and consider what the framework depicts against the way you deliver value with technology-based solutions today. A practical prompt to test whether the model is describing what your organization does, or what it thinks it does.
Service Desk Best Practices

Service Desk Best Practices: What to Do When Users Don’t Respond

How should a service desk deal with end user unresponsiveness? Here we look at various opinions sourced from the Back2ITSM Facebook group. First in 2016 and now in 2023.
How to Reduce Service Desk Agent Stress

How to Reduce Service Desk Agent Stress: 11 Practical Tips for IT Support Teams

How do you start to dealing with service desk agent stress. Here you’ll find 11 tips to reduce stress based on latest GFI Research findings.
A Real Customer Support Lesson for ITSM Teams

When Service Desk Scripts Fail: How “Good” Customer Support Turns Bad

This article is about a personal customer support experience with a very successful online retailer and what IT support organizations can learn from it.
Technical Support Is Really Customer Support

Technical Support Is Really Customer Support (Here’s Why It Matters)

Let’s stop reinforcing the fact that technical support fixes IT, it really fixes the issues people have because IT isn’t working.
7 Fun Service Desk Tips

7 Fun Service Desk Tips from the Greatest Wizard of All Time

Ever wondered what sage IT service desk and IT service management advice Dumbledore would offer to IT support teams and personnel? Well here you go…
itSMF UK 2025

itSMF UK 2025: People Over Process, Finally

The itSMF UK 2025 conference has come and gone. In this personal reflection, Sophie Danby covers the standout sessions she attended, the themes that shaped the event, what worked, and where the programme could still be tightened for next year. A picture of what happened for anyone who couldn’t be there in person.
AI in IT in 2026

AI in IT in 2026: Where is ITSM Heading?

Are you thinking about AI in IT in 2026? We’re rerunning our AI in IT survey with Atomicwork, collecting responses now to publish a fresh 2026 AI in IT report in time for the start of 2026. Please help everyone by adding your experiences and opinions.
AI in ITSM Tools

AI in ITSM Tools: What’s Being Added and What’s Next (2025 Insights)

In Q3 2025, PeopleCert collaborated with Accredited Tool Vendors (ATVs) and ITSM.tools on research into where AI capabilities have been added to ITSM tools and what the future of AI in ITSM tools holds. This article shares the findings, what’s already available, what’s still coming, and where vendor claims sit relative to reality.
The 2025 State of ITSM Report

The 2025 State of ITSM Report: How GenAI Is Cutting Resolution Time by 54%

This article presents some key findings from the SolarWinds 2025 State of ITSM Report. With data from more than 2,000 ITSM systems and over 60,000 anonymized incident records, this year’s report takes a close look at how service teams are adapting to new tools, especially generative AI (GenAI), and what measurable results they’re seeing.
How UEMS Solutions Reduce IT Help Desk Tickets

How UEMS Solutions Reduce IT Help Desk Tickets and Improve Employee Experience

Discover how Unified Endpoint Management and Security (UEMS) solutions reduce IT help desk tickets, improve employee experience, and cut operational costs.