<p>New Call Telecom, which competes with BT and Sky to offer home telephone services, broadband and low-cost international calls, is opening a call centre in Lancashire after being attracted by low commercial rents and cheap labour costs, the Daily Mail reported.<br /><br />Last week, Burnley, a market town in the Burnley borough of Lancashire county, hit the headlines as home to the ‘cheapest house in Britain’. A two-bedroom terrace property, described as being in need of ‘comprehensive repair and renovation’, was sold for 10,000 pounds ($16,126). It is rock-bottom property prices such as this and high unemployment that attracted New Call’s chief executive Nigel Eastwood to the town.<br /><br />New Call will pay four pounds a square foot for a space in Burnley, which Eastwood says is similar to that in Mumbai and New Delhi.<br /><br />"We did a cost and service analysis of returning home and there was an absolute parity between what we are paying for a third-party call centre in India and here in the UK," says Eastwood. <br /><br />"In India in the past decade, as call centres have grown, real-estate prices have gone up massively, while salaries have also crept up."<br /><br />He says: "Salaries in India aren't that cheap any more. Add to that the costs of us flying out there, hotels and software, and the costs are at an absolute parity."<br /><br />"In the UK, we will pay workers the minimum wage. Given the current economic environment, we will get good 'sticky' employees who will also receive bonuses linked to performance."<br /><br />Also, the use of foreign call centres has proved unpopular with many customers, who say they prefer to deal with British staff.</p>
<p>New Call Telecom, which competes with BT and Sky to offer home telephone services, broadband and low-cost international calls, is opening a call centre in Lancashire after being attracted by low commercial rents and cheap labour costs, the Daily Mail reported.<br /><br />Last week, Burnley, a market town in the Burnley borough of Lancashire county, hit the headlines as home to the ‘cheapest house in Britain’. A two-bedroom terrace property, described as being in need of ‘comprehensive repair and renovation’, was sold for 10,000 pounds ($16,126). It is rock-bottom property prices such as this and high unemployment that attracted New Call’s chief executive Nigel Eastwood to the town.<br /><br />New Call will pay four pounds a square foot for a space in Burnley, which Eastwood says is similar to that in Mumbai and New Delhi.<br /><br />"We did a cost and service analysis of returning home and there was an absolute parity between what we are paying for a third-party call centre in India and here in the UK," says Eastwood. <br /><br />"In India in the past decade, as call centres have grown, real-estate prices have gone up massively, while salaries have also crept up."<br /><br />He says: "Salaries in India aren't that cheap any more. Add to that the costs of us flying out there, hotels and software, and the costs are at an absolute parity."<br /><br />"In the UK, we will pay workers the minimum wage. Given the current economic environment, we will get good 'sticky' employees who will also receive bonuses linked to performance."<br /><br />Also, the use of foreign call centres has proved unpopular with many customers, who say they prefer to deal with British staff.</p>