New Zealand consumers are keen to use new social media channels and web-based options, but a new survey shows that so far less than 16% of our contact centres have a social media channel available.

Yet, Dr Catriona Wallace, analyst and director of the Australian company Callcentres.net, says businesses should not panic and rush into committing to social media services."The vendor community is driving the move towards new social media channels in contact centres. But we are facing an unprecedented development, where we really don't quite know how the use of social media will develop,” she told IT Brief after a presentation of her research to New Zealand contact centre professionals.

"In New Zealand there is still a widespread perception that social media is more for their private sphere. People seem a bit reluctant to use it in a business context. So businesses would be wise to take their time to study the available solutions carefully and look for good case studies of applied use before they make their own move into this area.

While Wallace does not think New Zealand companies are falling critically behind their consumers yet, she does urge businesses to give social media serious consideration in a wider sense than just for marketing and contact centres.

"Organisations must investigate an enterprise-wide multi channel service strategy. The contact centres will play a critical role, but essentially this new area will contribute to a dissolvement of the four walls of the contact centres,” she says.

New Zealand customers show a willingness to use a variety of channels, but email is the method that is most on the increase. Yet, when it comes to resolving a query at the first contact, emails only delivers in 55% of the surveyed cases. In comparison, customers found first contact resolutions in 71% of their contacts by phone conversation with the contact centre."Contact centres need to focus on delivering better first contact query resolution when they use newer channels,” Wallace urges

.Delivering good service in the contact centres really does matter, the survey shows.

About a quarter of all New Zealand customers in the survey say they would move their business within the following 12 months if they encounter a negative customer experience.

"The customers here in New Zealand are slightly less loyal than their German and Australian customers, but much more loyal than what we see from consumers in new emerging markets such as Brazil,” Wallace says.