Answer:
I know the following is going to sound like a consultant's answer but here goes.

There are a lot of quality monitoring "practices" bouncing around these days with an equal number of "benchmarking" studies and "surveys" being published. The problem is, it is difficult to assess "best practices." As I always say, survey results can lead a company, like a lemming, over a cliff.

Quality monitoring is a broader project than many companies are currently implementing. Companies are realizing the gold mine in monitoring calls and technologies are giving us the opportunity to expand our horizons. There is one system that claims to be able to monitor and score calls without any human intervention! While this may be true, I'm not sure it covers all the bases (e.g., business process protocol monitoring). However, it can do some neat things!

Call monitoring isn't just about agent skill and knowledge anymore. However, process, product, and competitive monitoring is really still just a great idea. Few companies have implemented it fully. Most companies are still struggling to get the required performance management process in place that supports "basic" call monitoring (for skill and knowledge).

I believe best practice companies today are the ones that have a fully integrated performance management infrastructure (metrics, performance standards, coaching / training, etc.) that supports the results of skill and knowledge monitoring.

If you haven't already, sign up for our newsletter. We have published call monitoring research and practices. After that, check out our site for other quality resources. Good luck with your initiative!