Frequently Asked Questions
Everything people ask about the Help Desk Simulator — how it works, what it costs (nothing), and how to squeeze the most interview value out of it.
Is the Help Desk Simulator really free?
Yes. No signup, no trial, no paywall. Open the homepage, start a shift, and your progress saves in your own browser (localStorage). Nothing is uploaded anywhere.
How does scoring work?
Each ticket has one best response worth 10 points. Beyond the total, every answer is tagged with a skill — security awareness, customer empathy, escalation judgment, or troubleshooting method — and your end-of-shift report shows accuracy per skill, so you can see exactly where to improve.
Are the scenarios based on real tickets?
The tickets are fictional, but every decision pattern is real: identity verification before password resets, major-incident aggregation, workaround-first handling of business-critical failures, least-privilege access, and USB bait handling all follow widely used ITIL-aligned service desk practice.
Is this the same as the Service Desk Simulator game?
No. Several entertainment games use similar names on platforms like itch.io and Steam. This site is a free training tool focused on making you better at (and hireable for) real IT support work, not a game — though we've tried to make practice genuinely fun.
Can I use it to prepare for a help desk interview?
That's its best use. Scenario questions dominate entry-level IT interviews, and most of our tickets map directly to common interview questions. Run shifts until your accuracy is consistently high, then rehearse narrating your reasoning with our interview questions guide.
What skill level is it aimed at?
Tickets are tiered from 1 (entry-level fundamentals) to 3 (judgment calls that trip up even experienced techs, like business email compromise and offboarding exceptions). Complete beginners will learn from the feedback; working technicians can treat it as a calibration check.
Does it cover both help desk and service desk work?
Yes. Incident handling (the classic help desk core) plus service-desk territory: access requests, license management, policy exceptions, and security incidents. If you're unsure of the difference between the two terms, see our service desk vs help desk guide.
Why did my progress disappear?
Progress lives in your browser's localStorage. Clearing site data, using private/incognito mode, or switching devices starts you fresh. There are no accounts by design — it keeps the tool free and private.
Will more scenarios be added?
Yes — the ticket pool grows regularly, and planned additions include role-based shifts (security-heavy, customer-heavy) and a timed mode that simulates queue pressure.
I found an answer I disagree with. Are the 'correct' answers really correct?
Each correct answer follows mainstream ITIL-aligned practice, and every piece of feedback explains the reasoning so you can judge it yourself. Real environments do vary — where your company's policy differs, follow your policy. If you believe a scenario is wrong, we genuinely want to hear the argument.
Still curious?
The fastest answer is to run a shift yourself — it takes about ten minutes. For deeper reading, start with what a help desk simulator is, check how accurate simulators really are, or build a full study plan with our free training guide.