One of the most frequent questions we hear from potential clients is: How long should IT support tickets take to resolve? This question usually focuses on the reactive technical support provided through the Managed Services model—commonly referred to as the IT support help desk.
The IT help desk plays a crucial role in the day-to-day operations of any business. Staffed by skilled engineers, the help desk provides remote technical assistance to users experiencing issues with their devices or software. Support is delivered via phone, email, or through an online portal, with all incidents logged in a ticketing system to ensure accurate tracking and measurement of performance.
Whether you’re managing IT internally or outsourcing to a provider, understanding what to expect from your help desk is key to ensuring your technology investments serve your business effectively.
The Help Desk Function
When employees run into technical issues—whether it’s a computer glitch, network outage, printer error, or software problem—the help desk is their go-to resource for support.
For some small businesses managing IT in-house, the help desk might consist of just one or two team members juggling multiple roles. Larger organizations or those that outsource IT support often rely on a dedicated team of professionals to handle these issues. Regardless of the setup, the help desk’s primary goal is to resolve as many issues as possible remotely, as over 90% of IT problems can be addressed without an onsite visit.
Benchmarking the performance of your help desk is critical, even if the scale of operations differs from others. Regularly comparing your help desk metrics against industry averages provides valuable insights into where improvements can be made and how your IT support is contributing to your overall business goals.
IT Help Desk Metrics and Benchmarking
At Endsight, we provide IT support to more than 10,923 users across 400+ companies in a wide range of industries, including law firms, nonprofits, manufacturing, construction, food and beverage, and more. This gives us a broad view of help desk performance across diverse business types, enabling us to establish reliable benchmarks.
During our
strategy reviews, we share account-specific metrics with our clients alongside overall averages, offering them a clear picture of their IT support performance. Below, we’ve outlined some of the key metrics that reflect the typical performance of Endsight’s help desk. Use these figures to evaluate your current IT support and identify areas for improvement.
How long should IT support tickets take to resolve?
How long should IT support tickets take to resolve? Let’s look at some key metrics from Endsight’s help desk over a recent 12-month period:
- Average time spent per ticket: 63 minutes
- Tickets resolved with a single time entry: 54.3%
- Tickets closed on the same day: 45.7%
- Tickets reopened on average: 5.4%
These numbers reflect how efficiently issues are addressed and resolved. The faster your help desk can close tickets—without sacrificing quality—the more productive your team can be.
However, speed isn’t the only measure of a successful help desk. Response times and customer satisfaction also play a vital role in assessing the value of IT support.
Response Time Metrics
A fast response is often as important as fast resolution. Here’s how Endsight’s help desk performs on responsiveness:
- Average time to reach a technician by phone: 1.23 minutes
- Average response time for email or portal tickets: 26.5 minutes
Response times ensure that clients get the attention they need promptly, reducing frustration and minimizing downtime.
Customer Satisfaction Scores on Tickets
Customer feedback is an invaluable tool for gauging the effectiveness of IT support. Endsight collects feedback after each ticket is closed, and here’s how we performed over the past year:
- Positive feedback: 99.18%
- Neutral feedback: 0.4%
- Negative feedback: 0.3%
- Engagement (tickets with feedback): 47.6%
High engagement rates, combined with overwhelmingly positive feedback, indicate not only satisfaction with our services but also strong customer relationships.
Comparing Industry Benchmarks
We collaborate with eight other managed service providers (MSPs) similar to Endsight in size and pricing models. This allows us to benchmark our performance against industry standards. Based on these comparisons, Endsight consistently performs at or above average in areas like response times, resolution times, and customer satisfaction.
While every business is unique, these benchmarks provide a useful starting point for evaluating your IT support.
Why Transparency Matters
Why are we sharing these metrics with the public? Because we believe in accountability. Whether your help desk is in-house or outsourced, it should be able to provide clear, measurable data on its performance.
Metrics like response time, resolution time, and customer satisfaction scores are not just numbers—they reflect how well your IT support contributes to the overall success of your business. If your help desk is slow to respond, struggles to resolve tickets efficiently, or receives poor customer feedback, it may be time to reevaluate your setup.
Experience Exceptional IT Support
At Endsight, we pride ourselves on delivering fast, reliable, and effective IT help desk services that empower businesses to thrive. If you’re ready to take your IT support to the next level, we invite you to learn more about our services.
