"If they (Qantas) don't move virtually everything up into Asia call centres, maintenance, any overhead they can they will go broke." (Dick Smith's article).
+1 'holic. 
Funnly enough, plenty of Australian businesses are moving away from overseas call centres because, Da Da Da Dah (drum roll)... they piss the customers off. 
Having recently re-located Worrals HQ I've had cause to ring about fifteen different multi million dollar Australian service providers. Two banks, insurers, telcos, energy providers, the list went on (and on 
). They all had Aussie call centres and all the staff were helpful.
These companies have learned the hard way that if you don't have call centre staff that speak English and have a basic grasp of the service they're supposed to provide the customers quickly move elsewhere. One of the major banks is even using 'talk to a real person' in their sales pitch. They're not quite saying 'We've got real Orstrayans on the blowers' but the inference is obvious. 
Most customers who call a call centre are stupid and/or in a tizz because something has gone horribly wrong. That's why they needed to call in the first place. A lousy call centre experience simply ensures that next time the stupid/freaked out person needs that particular product they'll go elsewhere., particularly if it's an allegedly premium product. For a LCC (or a really cheap internet provider) people will sometimes put up with a bit of a runaround, but Qantas Intl isn't a low cost product by any reckoning.
They'll also tell everyone they know, meet or sit next to on the bus that Company X sucks, because their call centre people couldn't help. Even Telstra figured this out eventually.
Last edited by Worrals in the wilds; 12th Jul 2011 at 21:39.
Reason: missed a Da