Incident Vs. Service Request: What Is the Difference Between Them?

IT teams receive lots of tickets their customers are facing, some of them are about general inquiry some need assistance and some can be sorted by themselves if they know once. Lots of people think that service request is just a fancy term used for the incident. But actually, there are several differences between them! Let us explore what is incident management and what is service requests and most importantly incident vs service requests!

What Is an Incident? What Is Incident Management?

An Incident can be an error or some event due to which service is not working properly. The incident is unplanned and it impacts the productivity of employees, departments, or whole organizations. It also impacts the quality of service.

Incident management is done to restore services in the minimum possible time. So that the loss of business does not occur and the productivity of the organization does not suffer. It ensures that the quality service is delivered and customer satisfaction level is maintained.

Incidents can cause a lot to businesses, especially to huge organizations. According to Statista,  “The statistic reveals the results of a survey of businesses worldwide regarding the cost of information security incidents they had detected in the 12 months before the survey. As of mid-2017, the average loss caused by IT security incident stood at 578 U.S. dollars.”

Also Read: What Are the Steps Involved in the Incident Management Process?

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What Is a Service Request?

The service request is regarding the problem the user is facing and it is a formal request from the user to provide the solution or information regarding the issue. For instance, installing a new workstation, helping in the password reset process, etc. The purpose of the service request is to support quality to the user in a user-friendly way.

Described Scenarios That Helps in Understanding Difference Between Incident & Service Requests?

Below we have mentioned few scenarios that help in comparing incident vs service request:

Scenario #1 - One of the most common examples of the incident is the internet is not working. For this user cannot do anything only try to troubleshoot those problems which are system-specific but if it is not system-specific then agents need to take action and their field workers inform that what is the issue or how much time will be consumed to resolve issues.

This is an example of the incident. When the user generates a ticket for the same then technicians reply to them informing them about issues. Some other examples that fall under the category of incidents are down a server, slow network.

Scenario #2 - When a user a new and wants to set up a SaaS account so this type of service will fall under the service request category. This type of scenario has low risk and the agent can take time to resolve the issue.

Also Read: What are the Benefits of Ticketing Management System?

Scenario #3 - Upgrading to the higher version of the software falls under the category of service request category.

What Is the Difference Between Incident and Service Requests?

In simple terms incident vs service request are discussed below:

1. The service request is a request raised by the user or client & he needs to provide some information whereas an incident is a more risky or serious matter compared to the service request.
2. For service requests, the user can also take the assistance of knowledge base and frequently asked questions and it can be solved by the user itself also. However, the incident cannot be solved by the user itself & the user will need the help of an agent.
3. In service, request agents are not in a pressure situation whereas in incident scenario agents can feel a lot of pressure.
4. Service requests are predictable whereas incidents can be unpredictable.
5. IT can be time-consuming but incidents can be more time-consuming.
6. Service requests are less critical & risky and incidents are more critical and riskier.

Conclusion

Incident and service request is important to understand to save time and resolve risky scenarios more quickly. When you know the difference between these two terms then only you can do better. Categorization of the ticket can help you identify the nature of the ticket. The technicians are in a better position to take further actions quickly.

To avoid incident vs service requests, you can use incident management that is an essential part of asset management software. With automated incident management, you can get a great insight into ticket resolving time. Furthermore, the priority of the ticket is decided in an automated way. When a technician forgets to take action on a ticket then the system is notified about the ticket.

Also Read: How Important Is It to Use Cloud-Based Incident Management System?

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. What are the benefits of Incident management software?‍

The benefits of Incident management software are given below:
1. Ticket tracking
2. Higher productivity
3. Detailed reports
4. Better decision making
5. Quality service assurance

2. Why major incidents are more harmful?‍

An Incident can impact the quality of service; a major incident can cause huge problems. It can affect the reputation of the organization, data security, regulatory compliance, and so on. Regular incidents can be solved quickly but major incidents are time-consuming and technicians are under tremendous pressure to solve incidents as soon as possible.

3. What is service request fulfillment?‍

Request fulfillment is the method of addressing a customer's request for service and related to handling all service requests for the entire lifecycle of each service request.

The IT team is committed to answering and meeting requests while providing quality support service to customers at every level. Request fulfillment is about getting workers to access IT services as it makes them more efficient.