86 per cent of UK contact centres plan to support mobile technology for optimised customer service, according to a study carried out by Aspect Software, which specialises in customer contact software.

The survey of 100 organisations found that over half of contact centres are planning to invest heavily in equipment that will enable them to increase mobile engagement with their customers, over the next 12-18 months.

The research supports findings from Gartner, which recently forecast that by 2015, Tablet devices would outsell desktop and laptop PCs by a rate of 60 per cent by the year, and from Ofcom, who recently revealed that the majority of the UK population now owns at least one mobile device.

The Aspect survey suggests, however, that peoples lifestyles are changing repidly, and that organisations have been slow to adapt to mobile communications. Results from the survey found that lack of capital investment and bandwidth restrictions were the biggest reasons for companies not considering any future plans to support mobile technology, with 37 per cent  of companies not having any immediate plans to do so.

“The research clearly shows that contact centres are investing in support for mobile technologies, which offer both the consumer and the supplier a convenient communications channel,” says Mark King, senior vice president of European sales at Aspect. “Perhaps crucially for many organisations, mobile provides a self-service first-point-of-contact that may reduce the need to interact with an organisation all together and help drive call avoidance strategies.”