COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. – HDI, a membership association for IT service and support professionals, released the findings of an annual survey.

The study highlights important trends in the help desk and it service and support industry. HDI collected data from 1,141 respondents during 2006. Some of the key findings in this year's report include:

--Phone-based support is still most popular, with an average of 70 percent of incidents being handled via telephone. Help desks are discovering ways to increase productivity and lower the cost of phone-based support. Average costs per incident have decreased from $27.60 in 2005 to $24.08 in 2006.

-- Sixty-one percent of support organizations report that incidents are increasing. Changes, upgrades, conversions and installations are the primary reasons for the increase.

-- The majority of IT service organizations (57 percent) outsource some aspect of their support operations, an increase of 9 percent over 2005 (48 percent). The most likely area to be outsourced is hardware support (31 percent).

-- Respondents were asked what they would do regarding the tools and technology used in their support organizations "if money were no object." a large percentage said they would "throw it all away and start over."

-- More than 50 percent do not measure employee satisfaction at all, and of those who do, nearly 63 percent indicated that employee satisfaction was quite low, demonstrating a need for more focus on employees.

-- Only slight changes (if any) were seen in the average salary paid at each position from 2005 to 2006. In general, the western region has the highest paid employees and the central region pays employees the least of the three regions for both 2005 and 2006.

-- More than 50 percent of the respondents plan to hire additional staff for their support centers over the next 12 months. However, nearly one-fifth (20 percent) believes there is a shortage of qualified professionals for these positions.

-- More than one-third of all respondents (34 percent) stated the most important factor motivating them was their desire to contribute to their companies.