Some people like to think that when they have an IT problem, they’ll submit a ticket and an eager IT professional will see it, perhaps cry “Sacré bleu!” and drop everything to fix it immediately. 

You may have to politely disabuse some end users of the notion that “Minecraft isn’t working” constitutes an emergency.

However, thankfully, most people are aware that it doesn’t work that way.

Here is some data culled from several types of help desks on how long the IT service desk takes to respond to an end-user problem, and how long it typically takes to fix that problem. Obviously, every service desk is different, but these stats can give you an idea of what’s generally expected.

Urgent Problems

Urgent problems are extensive, mission-critical, and have widespread impact. They prevent people from doing their work because there are no workarounds available. If a problem fits any of these criteria, it’s considered urgent:

• All major services are affected
• Affects a substantial number of end users
• Indicates a security breach
• Could have serious health and safety implications

The response time for an urgent problem is generally one to two hours. Time to resolve the issue is usually targeted at between two and five hours, though some organizations promise a resolution to an urgent problem “ASAP.”

High-Priority Problems

High-priority IT problems affect a large number of end users and disrupt workflow, but don’t cause everything to grind to a halt due to workarounds. Generally a “high priority” problem will have the following characteristics:

• Disrupts the work of a large number of end users
• Inconveniences a large number of end users
• May indicate a minor security breach
• Causes specific end users serious problems
• Could have health and safety implications

Goal times for acknowledging high-priority problems range from two hours to two days, with an average goal of around 18 hours. Resolution time targets range from six hours to seven days, with an average resolution target of about 2.5 days.

Medium-Priority Problems

Medium-priority problems are the “average” problems. They need solving, but they’re not going to push ahead of high-priority or urgent problems. A medium priority problem:

• Affects only one end user, but take them out of commission
• Inconveniences a small number of end users
• Doesn’t indicate a security problem
• Doesn’t affect health and safety

With medium-priority problems, response time targets range from four hours to five days, with an average of just under two days. Target times to resolution of medium priority problems range from eight hours to 25 days, with an average resolution target time of about eight days.

Low-Priority Problems

Low-priority problems are fixes or features that are “nice to have” but either don’t affect a large number of end users or only affect them in a very minor way. Low priority problems often fall into a “limited support” help desk category. One example would be an external service level agreement for non-essential equipment. Response times range from six hours to 20 days, with an average of about six days. Resolution time targets for low priority problems range from 12 hours to “whenever we get around to it.”