The UK's IT helpdesks are becoming more user-friendly, according a new benchmarking report released today by trade group the Help Desk Institute (HDI).

The annual survey of over 450 IT service desk professionals found that increased adoption of Itil best practices and the growing threat that helpdesk jobs could be moved offshore was leading to a widespread improvement in service desk performance.

The report found that two-thirds of helpdesks now have a formal service level agreement in place and that 44 percent, compared with just over a third last year, are placing user satisfaction rather than call volume as the main indicator of success.

The survey also found that since 2005 this increased focus on user satisfaction has led to a 66 percent rise in the average number of people employed on service desks and a five percentage point increase in the proportion of problems being resolved in one call.

"The increase in staff and increase in the average number of first contact resolutions indicate that Itil and the increased management focus on service desks is working," said Barclay Rae, Professional Services Director at HDI Europe. "It is not perfect yet, but there is evidence that these results are part of wider trend towards better connection between IT and the rest of the business."

The survey also revealed that over half of firms are now adopting two-tier helpdesk structures, which allow frontline staff to respond to simple inquiries and refer more complex problems to a dedicated pool of more experienced service desk professionals.

"It is a good structure for ensuring problems are resolved as quickly as possible," explained Rae. "With a traditional one-tier model when you get a problem that can’t be resolved you have to go and negotiate with other parts of the IT department to get resources to address the problem, but with a dedicated second tier of more technically adept people those resources are already there. "