Charitable call centres offer Comic Relief

The much-maligned UK call centre sector is working to improve its public image by throwing its considerable resources behind this year's Comic Relief campaign - which will come to a red-Mohicanned head on Friday night with the obligatory telethon.

Mobile phone operator Orange is just one of the companies whose call centres will be handling donations for the charity. Other companies getting involved in the scheme include Littlewoods, Peoples Choice and Virgin.

Although call centres often make the headlines for all the wrong reasons, Nick Kyte, senior manager, product marketing, at call centre vendor Rockwell FirstPoint Contact, believes everything will run smoothly on the night.

Kyte, whose firm's customers include Orange and Littlewoods, said: "Our customers have been handling calls for Comic Relief night since it started and so far we’ve never had a problem."

Getting into the spirit of things - call centre firm GN Netcom has provided red headsets for staff at Virgin Atlantic's call centre who will be working through the night processing pledges and donations.

BT will be routing the calls to the different participating call centres throughout the night. The last Comic Relief night in 2001 saw a massive 680,000 phone calls processed - raising £16m.