Most contact centers today would benefit from studying best practices. While no two call centers are alike, there are practices that inevitably lead to improved customer outcomes and leaner and more efficient operations. Some companies have discovered these best practices by trial and error, but that’s an expensive way to learn. Smaller contact centers don’t have enough opportunity (or cash) to learn this way. For this reason, it’s worth it to study the practices of the largest contact centers, which tend to be national and global contact center outsourcers. Contact center work isn’t just part of their business, it’s their entire business, and these companies spend a lot of money and time to get their processes right.

Cloud contact center solutions provider Five9 (News - Alert) recently surveyed several leading, U.S.-based contact center outsourcers, revealing interesting insight into how outsourcers compete, manage staff and work with clients. Five9 has turned the knowledge into an informative infographic. Some of the highlights of the survey include:

Emphasize the customer experience. 80 percent of contact center outsourcers say delivering a seamless and superior customer experience that is in line with their client’s brand is their biggest competitive differentiator. They achieve this in a number of ways, including hiring and training high quality agents (77 percent), integrating contact center solutions with leading CRM system (50 percent) and using advanced cloud-based technology (48 percent).

Robust reporting. Contact center outsourcers also stress the importance of reporting in their operations with 81 percent acknowledging that reporting is important to their clients. Two-thirds of outsourcers (66 percent) percent use custom-built reports to this end; 22 percent use pre-built reports and only 12 percent continue to use Excel spreadsheets.

Tracking metrics. While most contact centers track some metrics – average handle time (AHT) at the least – larger call centers and outsourcers make an effort to track the metrics that focus on quality. These include wait time (64 percent), calls per hour (83 percent), first-call resolution (42 percent), and sales (61 percent).

Using the cloud. Of the 48 percent of outsourcers who report using cloud-based technology, most report that the benefits include the ability to sign contracts with clients before having to invest capital in software, hardware and equipment; adding or removing capacity as needed; rapidly deploying multiple client projects with limited technology resources or staff; and the ability to delivery real-time metrics. In addition, 40 percent of outsourcers today report having agents who work remotely, a process that is directly enabled by cloud-based systems.

To view the entire infographic, visit Five9’s Web site.