Last month, I was stuck at Denver International Airport for six hours. The departure board kept flickering between “On Time” and “Delayed,” while gate agents scrambled around with walkie-talkies looking confused.
Nobody seemed to know what was happening or who to ask. That’s when it hit me: this is exactly what most companies’ incident management looks like when things go sideways.
The airline had systems failing, frustrated customers, and staff who couldn’t get clear information. Sound familiar? Now imagine if they had a proper service desk handling the situation instead of letting everyone figure it out as they went.
Why incident management separates good IT from great IT
When servers crash or applications stop working, someone has to fix it. The difference between companies that recover quickly and those that struggle for hours comes down to how they handle incidents. Incident management isn’t just about fixing problems; it’s about having a system that kicks in automatically when trouble starts.
Most organizations treat incidents like emergencies. People run around, multiple teams work on the same issue without talking to each other, and nobody communicates with users until everything is fixed. This approach wastes time and creates more frustration than the original problem.
The service desk plays a crucial role here. Think of it as mission control for IT problems. When users report issues, the service desk becomes the single point of contact that coordinates the response, tracks progress, and keeps everyone informed.
How Southwest Airlines gets incident management right
Southwest Airlines faced a massive operational meltdown during the December 2022 holiday season. Its systems couldn’t handle the volume of rebooking needed after weather disruptions. But here’s what the airline did differently the next time around: it rebuilt the incident response strategy with clear escalation paths and better communication channels.
Southwest Airlines’ service desk now has direct lines to operations teams, and it has automated many of the manual processes that caused delays. When issues arise, customers get updates through multiple channels instead of being left in the dark. The airline learned that good incident management isn’t just about fixing technical problems; it’s about managing the human impact.
Building a service desk that works under pressure
Setting up proper escalation procedures
Your service desk needs clear rules about when to escalate issues. Not everything requires the senior engineer to drop what they’re doing. Create tiers based on business impact, not just technical complexity. A broken laptop for one person doesn’t need the same response as an email outage affecting hundreds.
Define who gets called for different types of incidents and make sure contact information stays current. Nothing slows down incident response like outdated phone numbers and email addresses.
Communication that doesn’t make things worse
The worst part of any outage isn’t the technical problem; it’s not knowing what’s happening. Your service desk should send regular updates even when there’s no progress to report. Users prefer hearing “we’re still working on it” over radio silence.
Keep a standard template for incident communications. Include what happened, what you’re doing about it, and when the next update will come. Skip the technical jargon and focus on business impact.
Making incident management stick
Train your service desk staff to think like detectives, not just ticket processors. The first person who takes a call often has the best information about what went wrong, but that knowledge gets lost if they don’t ask the right questions.
Regular incident reviews help teams learn from problems instead of just moving on to the next fire. Focus on process improvements rather than blame, and your incident management will get better over time.
