Australian-based contact centre managers are entering the new financial year with a focus on deploying social media monitoring tools indicates a survey commissioned by RightNow.

The survey of contact centre managers in attendance at a recent Frost and Sullivan Customer event in Sydney found that while 68% of respondents plan to increase their spend on technology investment in the next 12 months, 65% plan to invest in social media monitoring tools as the number one priority.

Attendees implied that their strategy would be aimed at increasing customer satisfaction, as this remained the most pressing challenge facing the industry in coming months.

The survey also found that 25% of contact centres will outsource some or all of their contact centre functionality in the next 12 months.

“Better engagement with consumers through social networking sites is something which contact centre mangers now appear to be considering as a way of differentiating the customer experiences they offer,” says Brett Waters, vice president Asia Pacific South, RightNow.

“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.”

An additional survey conducted by StollzNow Research found 53% of Australians actively use social networking sites like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.