A leading building society has launched an investment programme in its UK call centres and pledged not to switch jobs abroad.

The announcement came on the day a new report showed that workers in India do not provide as good a service as staff in the UK.

Nationwide unveiled a major refurbishment of its centres in Swindon and Northampton and announced plans to open a new site in Sheffield in the summer, creating up to 180 jobs.

Chief executive Philip Williamson said: "Call centres abroad may suit some of our competitors but they are not the right option for Nationwide.

"We have strong links to the communities in which we operate and have no plans to desert these local communities in favour of overseas call centres."

The announcement came as research showed workers in UK call centres answered 25 per cent more calls each hour than Indian employees and resolved 17 per cent more of these calls first time.

The report, by research firm ContactBabel, also revealed that workers in Indian call centres were paid less than 12 per cent of the £13,000 typical salary of a UK call centre worker.

In a survey of 300 UK and Indian call centres, it was found Indian workers answered calls more than twice as quickly as in the UK.

But report author Steve Morrell said despite this, call centres in the UK provided a better quality of service.

He said: "Indian agents are very quick to pick up the phone but it takes them more than a minute longer to complete each call and more than a third of customers have to call back to get a satisfactory resolution to their inquiry."

Tuesday January 13, 2004