HDI Survey Says Despite Difficult Economic Backdrop the IT Support Industry Working Hard to Maintain its Commitment to Service and Support

HDI Announces the 2009 Annual Practices & Salary Report, Presents an Overall Look at the State of the IT Support Industry

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado, November 30 - HDI (www.thinkhdi.com), the world's largest membership association
for help desk and IT service and support professionals and the premier
certification body for the industry, today announced the 2009 Annual
Practices & Salary Report, a comprehensive study that presents an overall
look at the state of the IT support industry. The report shows that the
technical support industry is working hard to maintain its commitment to the
service and support of end-users and customers, despite the difficult
economic backdrop.

"The Annual Practices & Salary Report takes a deep dive into the state of
the service and support industry. It offers an inside look at support
centers' practices used throughout the industry which assists managers and
directors to validate existing practices, showcases new ideas for improving
methods and procedures in support centers and also provides a set of data to
which support centers can benchmark against," said Rich Hand, HDI Executive
Director of Membership. "Given the world's current economic climate, support
centers are working hard to maintain their commitment to the industry and
meet the needs of their customers."

The study was conducted with 1,053 participants from 11 industries
between May and July 2009 from the United States, Australia, Canada, India
and Philippines. The results illustrate behaviors and opinions of support
centers in a wide array of industries, sizes, and organizations that range
from local to international. The report is broken down into six categories,
including Incident Management; Support Tools; Process, Procedures, and
Strategies; Performance Metrics; Training, Certification, and Satisfaction;
and Salaries.

    Report highlights include:
    - Even though support centers in general do not appear to be
      supporting more customers, the large majority of support centers
      continue to see an increase in their number of incidents. The leading
      contributor to increased incidents, once again, is attributed to
      changes in infrastructure and/or products.
    - Self-help tools are the primary implementation initiative for 13
      percent of support centers. This is up from 10 percent in 2008.
    - The telephone continues to be the leading communication channel
      for incident management, followed by email. One-third of support centers
      respond to email incidents between 15 minutes and one hour and over
      one-third respond between one and four hours. Additionally, 70 percent
      of incidents are resolved with two or less email exchanges and fewer
      e- mail incidents are being converted to phone support than in 2008.
    - The number of support centers whose employees are receiving
      bonuses is down five percent. Still, there are 19 percent of support
      centers whose management receives bonuses and 45 percent whose
      management and staff receive bonuses.
    - Fewer support centers are outsourcing services in all areas
      except for one, hardware support and repair. The top reasons support
      centers are not outsourcing more are due to concerns about control of
      service, service quality, customer acceptance and then cost.
    - Support managers foresee both hiring freezes and salary freezes
      in their support organizations. This is up 21.4 percent and 23.6
      percent, respectively from 2008.
    - Although the primary training focus for new hires is product
      knowledge, customer service remains the number one area that support
      staffs are being trained in overall. The Computer industry is currently
      providing the most training for its IT support staffs while
      Manufacturing and Retail provide very little.
    - Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) seems to be
      particularly popular in Australia as well as large support centers and
      with those who provide internal support. Forty-three percent of support
      organizations are currently using or implementing ITIL and 21 percent
      are planning to implement some part of it.
    - Sixty-five percent of support centers said that there is no
      direct charge to their customer for support services. This is up 5
      percent from 2008.
    - Sixty-three percent of support centers currently use Knowledge
      Management Software, while 20 percent are planning to add it. In
      addition, over 13 percent of support centers are calling it their
      primary initiative for tool implementation.
    - While many support centers are embracing collaborative tools such
      as Share Point (30 percent) and Wikis (17.4 percent), they do not widely
      use social networking tools such as blogs, Linked IN, Twitter,
      Face Book, or My Space to provide support.

For more information about HDI or the 2009 Practice & Salary Report,
contact HDI Executive Director of Marketing Allison Wroe, +1-719-785-5355,
awroe@thinkhdi.com; or visit www.thinkhdi.com.

About HDI

HDI, a Think Services company, is the world's largest IT service and
support membership association and the industry's premier certification and
training body. Guided by an international panel of industry experts and
practitioners, HDI is the leading resource for help desk/support center
emerging trends and best practices. HDI provides members with a vast
repository of resources, networking opportunities and the largest industry
event - the HDI Annual Conference and Expo. Headquartered in Colorado
Springs, Colo., USA, HDI offers training in multiple languages and countries.
For more information, visit www.thinkhdi.com or call +1-719-268-0174.

About Think Services

Think Services connects specialized communities worldwide using
educational events, consulting, training, certification, membership, and
innovative media. Providing comprehensive opportunities for people to learn
from, network with, and inspire each other, Think Services builds strong
brands and works within communities to foster a unique affinity with its
products and services. The division's flagship products include the Game
Developers Conference, the Webby Award-winning Gamasutra.com, Game Developer
magazine, the International Customer Management Institute (ICMI), and HDI.
Think Services is a subsidiary of United Business Media, a global media and
marketing services company with a market capitalization of more than US$1.6
billion. To learn more, visit www.think-services.com.

Allison Wroe of Think Services' HDI, +1-719-785-5355, awroe at thinkhdi.com