Help desk software plays a central role in how teams deliver customer service and IT support, from market growth to day-to-day performance. This page connects industry spending signals with benchmarks like ~67% first contact resolution and around ~6 business days to close incidents in HDI 2023. You’ll also see how practices such as knowledge management and ITIL, plus automation and self-service, affect outcomes—along with emerging tech trends.
Key Takeaways
- The global customer service software market is forecast to reach $11.3 billion by 2023
- $1.6 billion global market value for IT service management (ITSM) software in 2023 (ServiceNow and related ITSM categories excluded from some counts)
- $5.6 billion global ITSM software market projected in 2026 (IDC forecast)
- Gartner predicts that by 2024, 25% of customer service organizations will use generative AI to increase contact deflection
- Gartner forecasts that by 2024, chatbots will be used for 70% of digital customer service interactions
- Gartner: By 2025, 80% of customer service organizations will offer proactive communication in some form
- Service desk benchmarking: median first contact resolution (FCR) reported at ~67% for IT service desks in HDI 2023 study (benchmark table)
- HDI 2023 benchmark: median first response time reported at ~1 business day for Tier 1 support (benchmark table)
- HDI 2023 benchmark: median time to close incident/ticket around ~6 business days for IT service desk workloads (benchmark table)
- Freshdesk/Ticketing cost benefits: 30% reduction in ticket volume after deploying help center self-service (company study)
- Gartner: Customer experience transformation efforts can reduce costs by up to 25% (Gartner estimate reported in CX articles)
- Freshworks 2023 State of Service: 41% of customers expect proactive support (proactive updates) at least sometimes
- ITIL practices: 90% of organizations adopting ITIL report improved service delivery outcomes (Axelos statistics page)
- Gartner: 45% of IT service desks report using some form of knowledge management (Gartner customer service/ITSM research excerpt)
Customer service and ITSM markets are booming while AI, automation, and self service drive faster resolution and lower costs.
Related reading
01 · Category
Market Size15 stats
01
The global customer service software market is forecast to reach $11.3 billion by 2023
02
$1.6 billion global market value for IT service management (ITSM) software in 2023 (ServiceNow and related ITSM categories excluded from some counts)
03
$5.6 billion global ITSM software market projected in 2026 (IDC forecast)
04
Global IT service management software spending was expected to be $28.6 billion in 2023 (including services and software components by definition used in IDC’s scenario)
05
Global IT service management software and services market is forecast to reach $41.3 billion by 2026 (IDC forecast)
06
In 2023, global call center/contact center AI software spending reached $5.6B (forecast/estimates in MarketsandMarkets report)
07
Contact center AI market expected to reach $13.1B by 2028 (MarketsandMarkets forecast)
08
$3.02B global IT service management market in 2022 (Fortune Business Insights estimate)
09
IT service management market forecast to reach $6.48B by 2030 (Fortune Business Insights estimate)
10
$32.3 billion in 2023 for global ITSM software and services spending
11
$38.9 billion in 2024 for global ITSM software and services spending
12
$45.4 billion in 2025 for global ITSM software and services spending
13
$52.1 billion in 2026 for global ITSM software and services spending
14
$43.0 billion in 2025 for global ITSM software and services spending (IDC forecast)
15
$49.0 billion in 2026 for global ITSM software and services spending (IDC forecast)
Interpretation
Market Size Interpretation
For the Help Desk Software industry under the Market Size category, spending is set to expand sharply as IDC forecasts the IT service management software and services market will grow from $28.6 billion in 2023 to $41.3 billion by 2026, alongside strong momentum in related areas like call center and contact center AI software reaching $5.6 billion in 2023.
report visual · Projection
Global ITSM Software & Services Market Size Is Expanding
Global ITSM software and services spending is trending upward year over year, led by the latest forecast year value, showing a clear growth gap versus the earlier 2023 baseline.
32.3 USD billions
Start
+17.28%
CAGR · 3y
52.1 USD billions
Projected
20232026
source-verifiedmy.idc.com2026
02 · Category
Industry Trends18 stats
01
Gartner predicts that by 2024, 25% of customer service organizations will use generative AI to increase contact deflection
02
Gartner forecasts that by 2024, chatbots will be used for 70% of digital customer service interactions
03
Gartner: By 2025, 80% of customer service organizations will offer proactive communication in some form
04
Gartner: By 2026, most digital employee experience will use agent-assist or copilots
05
Gartner: By 2025, 25% of IT service desks will automate tier-1 and tier-2 support requests using AI
06
In HDI’s 2023 Global Service Desk Benchmarking study, 86% of organizations use a knowledge base to support service desk operations
07
In HDI’s 2023 Global Service Desk Benchmarking study, 49% of organizations reported they use knowledge base content analytics to improve resolution rates
08
Global spending on AI software is projected to grow from $62.5B in 2022 to $299.4B by 2027 (IDC forecast)
09
Freshworks’ 2023 State of Service report: 72% of organizations believe their customers expect faster response times than they received last year
10
Freshworks 2023 State of Service: 58% of organizations plan to increase their customer support team size
11
Freshworks 2023 State of Service: 52% of organizations say they are currently using chatbots in customer support
12
Freshworks 2023 State of Service: 44% say they plan to deploy AI-enabled support to improve agent productivity
13
Service desk modernization: 61% of IT leaders expect to invest in automation/AI for service desks (survey-based, HDI/industry reporting)
14
71% of organizations reported they use ITIL in some way (ITSM research synopsis)
15
Gartner: By 2025, 40% of organizations will use AI to improve customer and employee experiences (AI in CX/EX forecast)
16
HDI 2023: 62% of organizations reported improved service performance after implementing knowledge management practices (HDI survey summary)
17
Gartner: 20% of service desks will be fully automated by 2025 (IT service desk automation forecast)
18
By 2025, 75% of organizations will apply AI to customer service to improve personalization (Gartner forecast)
Interpretation
Industry Trends Interpretation
Industry Trends data shows that AI is moving quickly into help desk operations, with Gartner predicting that by 2025, 25% of IT service desks will use AI to automate tier 1 and tier 2 requests while, by 2024, 25% of customer service organizations will adopt generative AI for contact deflection and chatbots will handle 70% of digital customer service interactions.
03 · Category
Performance Metrics13 stats
01
Service desk benchmarking: median first contact resolution (FCR) reported at ~67% for IT service desks in HDI 2023 study (benchmark table)
02
HDI 2023 benchmark: median first response time reported at ~1 business day for Tier 1 support (benchmark table)
03
HDI 2023 benchmark: median time to close incident/ticket around ~6 business days for IT service desk workloads (benchmark table)
04
Automation ROI: reduce mean time to resolution by 25% (ServiceNow customer story metric)
05
In a Gartner case/analysis on knowledge management, organizations can reduce resolution time by up to 14% with effective knowledge bases (Gartner estimate referenced in articles)
06
In a Gartner study, the average organization handles 11–15% of service requests through automation (automation share range used in Gartner estimates)
07
Service desk tools: 47% of organizations use ticket routing rules to improve speed (freshworks survey statistic)
08
HDI 2023 benchmark: average ticket re-open rate reported around 5–7% depending on tier (benchmark summary metric)
09
Service desk KPI: SLA attainment often targeted at 95% or more in benchmark programs (HDI typical SLA goal metric)
10
HDI 2023: 80% of organizations track KPIs for service desk performance (benchmark survey summary)
11
HDI 2023: 58% of organizations measure customer satisfaction (CSAT) for every ticket or interaction (benchmark survey summary)
12
HDI 2023: 33% of organizations use NPS as a service desk KPI (benchmark survey summary)
13
Freshdesk adoption: 2.5x faster resolution times with automated ticket triage reported in Freshworks customer results (example data point on Freshworks page)
Interpretation
Performance Metrics Interpretation
Performance metrics for help desk operations show clear gains, with HDI 2023 benchmarks placing median first contact resolution around 67% and Tier 1 first response at about one business day, while automation and knowledge management are linked to cutting resolution time by roughly 25% and up to 14% respectively and handling around 11 to 15% of requests through automation.
More related reading
04 · Category
Cost Analysis2 stats
01
Freshdesk/Ticketing cost benefits: 30% reduction in ticket volume after deploying help center self-service (company study)
02
Gartner: Customer experience transformation efforts can reduce costs by up to 25% (Gartner estimate reported in CX articles)
Interpretation
Cost Analysis Interpretation
Under the Cost Analysis lens, these findings suggest help desk deployments that add self-service can cut support ticket volume by 30% while broader customer experience transformation efforts can reduce costs by as much as 25%.
05 · Category
User Adoption3 stats
01
Freshworks 2023 State of Service: 41% of customers expect proactive support (proactive updates) at least sometimes
02
ITIL practices: 90% of organizations adopting ITIL report improved service delivery outcomes (Axelos statistics page)
03
Gartner: 45% of IT service desks report using some form of knowledge management (Gartner customer service/ITSM research excerpt)
Interpretation
User Adoption Interpretation
For user adoption in help desk software, the standout trend is that proactive service expectations are already widespread, with 41% of customers expecting proactive updates at least sometimes, while higher service delivery outcomes tied to ITIL and knowledge management show that organizations are increasingly building the practices that make that experience easier to adopt at scale.
Reference
Cite This Report
This report is designed to be cited. We maintain stable URLs and versioned verification dates. Copy the format appropriate for your publication below.
APA
James Okoro. (2026, February 13). Help Desk Software Industry Statistics. Gitnux. https://gitnux.org/help-desk-software-industry-statistics
MLA
James Okoro. "Help Desk Software Industry Statistics." Gitnux, 13 Feb 2026, https://gitnux.org/help-desk-software-industry-statistics.
Chicago
James Okoro. 2026. "Help Desk Software Industry Statistics." Gitnux. https://gitnux.org/help-desk-software-industry-statistics.
Sources & references
26 datasets cited across this report · attribution is report-level
+17 additional datasets cited (not shown individually)