Here’s something nobody tells you when you’re building out an IT function at a growing company: the requests don’t get more complex as you scale. They get more numerous. The same six categories of IT service requests show up in every 50-person company, every single week — whether you have a system for them or not.
The difference between an IT team that’s drowning and one that isn’t usually comes down to one thing: whether those requests land somewhere structured, or disappear into Slack DMs, email threads, and someone’s mental to-do list.
Here’s what’s actually coming in every week — and what a good IT service request process looks like for each one.
What is an IT service request?
An IT service request is a formal or informal ask from an employee to the IT team — covering anything from a new laptop and software access to a broken monitor or a password reset. Unlike incident reports, IT service requests are routine, predictable, and recurring. Most 50-person companies receive dozens every week, often submitted through Slack DMs, email, or direct messages rather than a structured IT request ticket system.
1. New Employee Access and Onboarding Setup
Every new hire triggers a wave of IT service requests before their first day even starts. Laptop provisioning, email setup, software licenses, Slack access, Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 permissions, VPN credentials, printer access, and whatever internal tools the team uses. At a 50-person company adding two or three people a month, this becomes a recurring IT project request that takes meaningful time every single week.
The IT service request process for onboarding is also where gaps become visible fast. If there’s no structured IT request software tracking what’s been provisioned and what’s pending, something always slips — the new hire shows up without access to a critical tool, or IT finds out about a start date the day before it happens.
A proper IT request ticket system handles this with a templated onboarding checklist: every new hire triggers the same set of sub-requests automatically, routed to the right people, tracked through to completion. No DMs, no spreadsheets, no “did you get the laptop sorted?” the morning someone starts.
2. Software Access and License Requests
“Can I get access to [tool]?” is probably the single most common IT support request at any growing company. Design team needs Figma seats. Sales wants a new CRM integration. Marketing is requesting access to a data platform. Finance needs someone added to the billing portal.
These feel like simple IT service request examples — and individually, they are. The problem is volume and visibility. When software access requests come in via Slack DM or email, there’s no record of what was approved, who approved it, when it was granted, or whether the license was ever actually assigned. At 50 people, that’s manageable. At 80, it becomes a compliance and budget problem.
A structured IT service request software solution gives every access request a paper trail: submitted, approved, actioned, confirmed. It also makes license audits possible — which matters when you’re paying per seat on ten different SaaS tools.
3. Hardware Issues and Equipment Requests
The laptop that won’t connect to anything. The monitor flickering on and off. The keyboard with two stuck keys that someone’s been living with for three weeks because they didn’t want to bother IT. The request for a second monitor that got mentioned in passing and then forgotten.
Hardware IT requests are the ones most likely to fall through the cracks in an unstructured IT request process — partly because employees often don’t think they’re “worth submitting a ticket for,” and partly because when they do mention it, it lands in a Slack message that gets buried by the next conversation.
These are also the IT service request examples where response time has the most direct impact on productivity. A broken laptop is a blocked employee. A missing charger is a half-day disruption. Tracking hardware requests through a proper IT request ticket system means nothing gets lost, priorities are visible, and the IT team can batch similar requests rather than handling each one reactively.
4. Password Resets and Account Lockouts
Nobody wants to admit how many IT support requests are still password resets. But at a 50-person company using fifteen different tools, account lockouts happen constantly — Monday mornings especially, after someone’s been locked out over the weekend and is sitting in front of their laptop unable to work.
Password resets are the IT service request that most clearly illustrates the adoption problem with separate portals. An employee locked out of their account cannot log into a web-based IT request software platform to submit a ticket. They’re going to DM IT directly, or message a colleague to relay it, or just sit there waiting.
This is exactly where a Slack-native IT request process pays off. The employee sends a message from wherever they are — including their phone — and the request lands in a structured queue without requiring them to log into anything. It’s also where a good knowledge base and FAQ system deflects a significant portion of the volume: step-by-step self-service guides for the most common resets mean IT never sees those tickets at all.
5. Network, VPN, and Connectivity Issues
Can’t connect to the VPN. Wi-Fi dropping in the conference room. Remote employee can’t reach an internal tool. New joiner needs VPN credentials. Guest Wi-Fi access for a visitor.
Connectivity IT service requests have an urgency dimension that most other request types don’t. When someone can’t connect, they can’t work — and they’re not going to wait patiently for a response. They’re going to escalate immediately, message the IT person directly, and possibly message their manager too.
Having a clear IT service request process for connectivity issues — with defined response time expectations and automatic routing to whoever handles network issues — reduces the chaos that comes with urgent requests landing in the wrong place. It also gives the IT team data over time: if the same conference room generates a connectivity IT ticket every week, that’s a pattern worth addressing rather than triaging individually each time.
6. IT Requests That Aren’t Actually IT
This one doesn’t get talked about enough. A meaningful percentage of what lands in the IT queue at a 50-person company isn’t really an IT service request at all. It’s a facilities issue (the heating in the back office is broken), a workplace ops request (we need more chairs in the meeting room), or an HR query (how do I update my direct deposit info).
These misdirected requests happen because employees don’t know where else to send them — so they go to IT, because IT is usually the most responsive internal support function. The result is IT spending time triaging and re-routing requests that were never theirs to handle.
A proper internal workplace request management system handles this by giving employees a single place to submit anything — IT, facilities, HR, office ops — and routing each request to the right team automatically. No more misdirected IT tickets. No more “you need to email facilities for that.”
What a Good IT Service Request Process Actually Looks Like
The pattern across all six categories is the same: the requests are predictable, recurring, and manageable — as long as they land somewhere structured.
A good IT service request process for a 50-person company doesn’t require enterprise ITSM software, ITIL certification, or a dedicated ticketing admin. It requires three things: a consistent channel for requests to come in, automatic routing to the right person or team, and visibility into what’s open, what’s been resolved, and what’s taking too long.
OfficeAmp is built for exactly this. It runs natively inside Slack and Microsoft Teams — so employees submit IT service requests the same way they’d send any message, without a separate portal or new login. Every request gets tracked through an IT request ticket system, routed automatically, and resolved without anything falling through the cracks.
For a look at how OfficeAmp compares to more complex IT service request software, see our full comparison of internal helpdesk options for growing teams.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an IT service request?
An IT service request is an employee’s ask for something from the IT team — hardware, software access, account help, connectivity support, or general IT assistance. Unlike an incident (something that broke unexpectedly), IT service requests are routine and expected. Most growing companies receive dozens of IT support requests per week across categories like onboarding setup, software access, hardware issues, and password resets.
What are common IT service request examples?
The most common IT service request examples at a 50-person company include: new employee equipment and access setup, software license and permission requests, hardware issues and replacement requests, password resets and account lockouts, VPN and connectivity issues, and misdirected requests that belong to facilities or HR. These six categories account for the majority of IT ticket volume at most growing companies every single week.
What is the IT service request process?
The IT service request process typically involves four steps: submission (employee submits a request through a defined channel), triage (IT reviews and prioritizes the request), fulfillment (the request is actioned by the right person or team), and confirmation (the employee is notified that the request is complete). In a structured IT request ticket system, this process is tracked automatically — giving both employees and IT teams visibility at every stage.
What is IT request software?
IT request software is a tool that captures, tracks, and routes employee IT service requests from submission through to resolution. It replaces informal channels like Slack DMs and email for IT support, giving every request a record, an owner, and a status. Modern IT service request software like OfficeAmp runs natively inside Slack or Microsoft Teams, so employees submit requests without leaving the tools they already use.
What is the difference between an IT service request and an IT incident?
An IT service request is a routine, expected ask — software access, new equipment, onboarding setup. An IT incident is an unplanned disruption — a system outage, a security breach, a tool that suddenly stopped working. Both flow through an IT request ticket system, but incidents typically require faster response times and different escalation paths. For most 50-person companies, the majority of IT ticket volume is service requests, not incidents.
How do companies manage IT requests without a dedicated IT department?
Companies without a dedicated IT department typically manage IT service requests through a lightweight IT request software tool that runs inside Slack or Microsoft Teams. This lets one or two people handling IT alongside other responsibilities stay on top of requests without a separate system to monitor. Auto-routing, status tracking, and a knowledge base for common questions reduce the manual load significantly — and ensure nothing gets lost in a DM thread.
The six categories above are not going away. They’re the baseline operational reality of running a 50-person company, and they’ll still be there at 100 people — just more of them.
The question isn’t how to eliminate IT service requests. It’s how to handle them in a way that doesn’t require constant manual triage, doesn’t leave employees waiting without updates, and doesn’t depend on one person remembering everything that’s open.
A structured IT request process — inside the tools your team already uses — is usually all it takes.
See how OfficeAmp handles IT service requests inside Slack →
