Ted Tann-Watson

Leicestershire

Currently, Government artist

I have to say that my experience of offshore call centres has not been good. I have spent considerable amounts of time trying to get the BT Broadband call centre to understand that the real problem I had was that the Voyager 210 router they supplied just wasn't up tot he job - but then how would they understand that, when they couldn't even get my name right!

As well as the problem with security highlighted here, I see two other problems - first of all, every time we export a call centre to another country, we are losing a little bit more skill. Surely we have learned something from the mistakes of the last thirty years, and the destruction of our manufacturing capacity as we have exported that? Secondly, I talk to more and more people who refuse to deal with an offshore call centre - which ultimately means that businesses will lose out, as their customers turn elsewhere.

But then, we could all become service level managers...