IT help desk outsourcing is when you hire an external vendor to provide 24/7/365 tech support for your team as a standalone service. Managed service providers (MSPs) offer help desk services as part of their comprehensive solution. But when the term “IT help desk outsourcing” is used, it typically refers to only help desk support. The staff who work the help desk will take calls (or chats or tickets) and do their best to fix the immediate problem of the user. IT help desk support services usually include: Running diagnostics. Escalating the issue to someone with higher levels of expertise. Installing, repairing and/or making changes to computer hardware and software. Follow-up with customers to ensure issues are resolved. If you use a managed service provider instead for your help desk, you have the benefit of a help desk team that is extremely knowledgeable about your business and IT infrastructure. That’s because they are also part of the team actively working to prevent issues. A standalone IT outsourcing help desk team usually does not have that level of insight into your business or the ability to help prevent similar issues from coming up.