Who is the Service Desk Manager? An Ultimate Guide

IT jobs are often perceived as involving mainly technical and routine work. While this holds for many IT professionals, there's an exception within the field - the Service Desk Manager (SDM) role. Drawing from my extensive experience as a professional service desk manager, I affirm that, unlike regular IT work, SDMs are required to possess not only high technical skills but also strong people skills.

Management skills, including conflict management, differ significantly from routine IT tasks. Therefore, SDMs should know the nitty-gritty of both skills. Let me give you a detailed look at the service desk manager role and salary and explain why they are important in the business.

What Does a Service Desk Manager Do?

According to me, SDMs are a great asset to businesses in today’s world. The job is different and versatile. However, there are a lot of people who are not accurate about their roles and responsibilities. Known by multiple names such as service delivery manager, support manager, or ITS administrator, this position demands the following activities:

Knowing the Overall Operations
Before entering the job role of an IT service desk manager, you should be aware of the technicalities and functioning of all aspects of IT service delivery. Being in this job will allow you to manage customer support, resource and relationship management, and sales negotiations.

If you want to be an ideal SDM, you must possess practical knowledge of a business's network, database, infrastructure, security, and software privacy. This knowledge calls for innovative solutions and is highly efficient in identifying the impact of any serious issues that may occur in business.

Identifying the Service Management Frameworks
Service desk manager tasks tend to follow the IT service framework to ensure that the IT service complies with industry guidelines. This ensures a strong IT authority, helping to meet industrial requirements. Adhering to the industrial framework will easily help you achieve consistency and responsibility. It will also, to my knowledge, help display your strong commitment to quality service.

Keeping Track of IT Cost
SDMs are responsible for balancing the delivery of service quality with the costs incurred. They are typically aware of the total running costs of the service desk as they often make data-heavy decisions. These decisions are crucial for managing their budgets and taking on new tasks. By keeping track of total IT costs, they can easily justify their spending and also keep track of the return on all initiatives.

What Are a Service Desk Manager's Daily Duties?

For me, the primary goal of the service desk manager's duty is to meet the expectations of customer service and improve their support performance level. Thus, the success of service desk managers remains centered on how well they manage their daily duties. Here are the daily responsibilities of SDMs that help fulfill the primary goal:

• SDMs work towards setting up their team. Their everyday responsibilities include controlling, expanding, and training the service desk team.
• SDMs regularly ensure that all the strategies implemented are thoroughly documented, audited, and enhanced. This will help meet the needs and desires of the customer with the IT desk resources. Plus, it will improve the service experience of the organization.
• SDMs conduct meetings and share results from the customer service experience on a weekly or biweekly basis. They also document the operations' performance and review the customer satisfaction level report.
• SDMs work towards promoting the service desk with senior management. They do so because it ensures that their business operations are properly viewed as a core business asset.
• SDMs manage all relevant stakeholders involved in service desk processes. They manage several entities to improve the overall performance of the service desk by running their operations based on real-time metrics and data.
• The service desk manager regularly communicates with external and internal groups within an organization. Four levels of communication are managed daily between:
• The organization's leadership and the service desk.
• Service desk and other business stakeholders.
• The external group and the service desk.
• Team members.

How to Become a Service Desk Manager?

Education requirements to become a service desk manager range from a simple diploma course to a bachelor’s degree. Acquiring IT service management training courses can easily demonstrate your skills relevant to becoming a service desk manager. I have witnessed several professionals acquiring bachelor's degrees in software engineering, programming, and related fields before starting their careers as service desk managers.

Let me outline a detailed structure of how to become a service desk manager.

Educational Degrees

To become an SDM, it is necessary to take up some formal education to showcase your industry knowledge.

• Complete secondary school: To become an SDM, it is important to complete secondary school. You should have a combination of a Higher Secondary Certificate and either a Secondary School Certificate or a diploma. Higher and secondary school certificates should include subjects such as Math, English, and Science. You can also acquire an IT-related diploma to make your career as a service desk manager.
• Complete your bachelor’s degree: Now, you must join a university to pursue a Bachelor's Degree with Computer Science as a major curriculum. During your bachelor's degree, you tend to learn about the different facets of IT and its application in real-time. You should choose modules like software engineering, security, programming, and systems engineering in your course because knowledge related to these subjects is extremely important. After all, it will help you apply it in your career as an IT service desk manager.

Formal Training

You can also become a successful SDM by taking up formal training in this field. It will allow you to become an SDM without pursuing a formal educational degree. 

Obtain an apprenticeship: An easy alternative to pursuing a bachelor's degree is finding an apprenticeship. Through apprenticeships, you combine studying and doing paid work as a working professional. In an apprenticeship, you acquire the skills and knowledge necessary to demonstrate your skill as a service desk manager. With this approach, you can even earn a degree when you complete the entire coursework. I would recommend taking up the ITIL 4 Foundation certification. Later, you can look for a leadership position in your IT career and master your management skills to advance as a service desk manager.

How Much Does a Service Desk Manager Make?

Service Desk Managers who fall into the category of Computer and Information Systems have a median annual salary of $131,600. If you are in the top 90% category of service desk managers, you are more likely to make $80,200 annually. And if you are in the top 10% category of service desk manager professionals, then you can even make up to $187,200.

I have curated the average salaries of service desk managers across the top five countries in the table below: 

Country	Annual Salary (Source: ZipRecruiter, Ambitionbox, Talent.com)
India	₹9,10,000
USA	$94,518
UK	£44,870
Canada	$112,467
Australia	$100,500

Let me highlight some of the tips to become an ideal service desk manager and grow rapidly in this career.

• Invest in the certification of the open group architecture framework course to learn about the service management framework, which is crucial for working in the industry.
• Keep the support content constantly updated as new products roll out in the market.
• Focus on the customer experience by regular feedback and understanding their challenges.
• Create a dedicated knowledge base to enable the service 24×7 to customers.

What are the Different Types of Service Desk Managers?

Now that you know what a service desk manager is, let us navigate their types. These types are based on the location and scope of an organization. Let me put forward the different types of service desks in detail.

1. Local Desk: It is simple to understand what a local service desk manager is. As the name suggests, a local service desk remains located within the organization’s premises or near it. The local desk helps in dealing with the organization’s requirements depending on the country-wise or location-wise IT problems or requests. Being a localized service desk, it is not adequate to handle higher volumes of calls or service requests.
2. Centralized Desk: A centralized service desk is a more cost-effective option than a local desk. It helps businesses manage a large number of customer calls. The plus point is that it needs fewer support agents. Its setup is usually stored in a central location of the organization, which is used to address regional, language, cultural, and time-zone challenges.
3. Virtual Service Desk: One of the most popular types of service desk is the virtual service desk. It is a convenient and highly sought-after service desk type among corporations, businesses, and IT companies. It authorizes organizations to deploy IT support staff virtually on demand. They assist end-users experiencing technical issues. It is also easy for end-users to raise their concerns or tickets, and they can do this through the Internet using multiple devices.
4. Follow the Sun: This is the widest type of service desk with the highest magnitude of tickets. It helps organizations support their customers from across the world. This type of service desk considers the time zone differences across various countries. Therefore, the staff of these service desks remain available all the time so that the organization can offer round-the-clock support.

What Qualifications Does A Service Desk Manager Need?

As a professional SDM, I tend to incorporate both the technical and soft skills of SDM in my work. That’s why I have accumulated some of the most important service desk management qualifications that are helpful for all professionals in this field.

• Knowledge of ITIL Discipline: An SDM should have proper knowledge of the ITIL discipline. It is an essential component because, with its knowledge, you can review the efficiency of incident management and participate in extending suggestions for enhancements to the management system. It also helps in managing major incidents and methods for developing and maintaining incident management.
• Customer service abilities: An SDM uses customer service abilities to ensure project management. Customer service abilities refer to the capacity by which they pay attention to the problems of customers and address them. This is important for SDMs because their immediate responsibilities include clients’ assistance and addressing their issues.
• Management Capabilities: SDM uses managerial skills by taking charge of developing and enforcing customer service laws and procedures. They are viewed as a professional who are clear about their statements and are also expected to provide a professional image in front of the clients.

What Certifications are Available for Service Desk Managers?

According to me, an SDM should acquire multiple certifications related to the IT industry for better job prospects. If you are a prospective candidate for being a service desk manager, as I assume you to be, you must have concrete technical knowledge in this field. Let me highlight some of the best certifications available out there.

1. IT Information Library Foundations Certification (ITIL): ITIL 4 Foundation Certification is a certification course specifically designed for IT service professionals. It helps you align with the fundamental know-how of IT service in a business setting. It also aids in understanding how to reduce long-term costs and improve service quality.
2. HDI Support Center Manager (HDI): HDI is a certification course specifically designed to assess the knowledge of support center managers. It caters to rendering knowledge about best practices essential to successfully managing the operations of an organization.
3. ITIL Foundation: It is an LCS-accredited course that summarizes the service desk manager roles and responsibilities of ITIL best practices. It is necessary to enhance your knowledge to qualify for the ITIL Foundation certification exam. Qualifying in the ITIL Foundation is mandatory for all other ITIL certifications.
4. Security 5 Certification: The Security5 Certification can be earned by someone interested in learning computer networking and security basics. This Security 5 certificate provides basic networking literacy skills, which can help you start advanced IT programs.
5. Certified Help Desk Manager (CHDM): Being in this industry for a long time, I find the Certified Help Desk Manager certification course exemplary. It will empower you with new ways to enhance the customer experience and support center for both internal and external customers.

Who Should Hire a Service Desk Manager?

Every business finds it crucial to hire someone responsible for managing its service desk processes. Suppose the business has a smaller service desk (a few people) in this type of business setting. In that case, one of the senior agents can be assigned to serve as the manager, who will also be responsible for resolving user queries. However, suppose a business' service desk has more than one shift, specialized teams, vendor relationships, or more than about 10 agents. In that case, those businesses must require a dedicated manager who remains responsible for management activities.

Large-scale businesses need service desk managers because they can ensure the smooth operations of the service desk. Being a proficient service desk manager for years, I can say that these managers allow greater efficiency in dealing with customer queries. The end-users receive a higher level of support than they ideally expect from these IT organizations.

Conclusion

The role of an SDM evolved out of the need to centralize all users’ requests and queries in a business. A survey by Right Now Technologies cited that 78% of consumers have given up on transactions due to poor customer service. Thus, good SDMs are truly essential for the business. It is not an easy task to manage the technical aspects and people of the IT service desk altogether. So, you should strive to become the IT's jack of all trades to join the race. According to me, it’s worth investing in KnowledgeHut IT service management training courses to learn more about this field. It will, therefore, help you obtain the required skills and qualifications to excel as an SDM.