Social media has jumped to the top of the priorities list for Australian-based contact centre managers, as companies look forward towards the new financial year.
A survey at the recent Frost and Sullivan Customer Contact event revealed that 65% of respondents outlined investing in social media monitoring tools as of primary concern.
This result comes in the wake of figures showing that 53 per cent of Australians now actively use social networking sites such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.
The Frost and Sullivan survey, conducted by customer service management company RightNow, also found that 25 per cent of contact centres will begin to outsource some or all of their contact centre functionality within a year.
Brett Waters, Vice President of RightNow in the Asia Pacific South, believes that the figures indicate the increasing role that social media will play in the coming years.
“Better engagement with consumers through social networking sites is something which contact centre managers now appear to be considering as a way of differentiating the customer experiences they offer.
“Our own data tells us there are opportunities here for robust marketing and customer service interactions, and it now seems that the contact centre industry is waking up to the calls of consumers who appear increasingly content for companies to use social networking sites for many different interactions.”
