The Call Centre

The Call Centre is a BBC fly-on-the-wall documentary following staff at the call centre of a Welsh company called Save Britain Money. Although now in administration[1] at the time of filming the call centre was described as Swansea's third largest.[2] Two series plus a Christmas special have aired on BBC 3, in total 12 episodes, beginning in 2013 and concluding in 2014.[3]

The show focused on boss Neville (Nev) Wilshire. Wilshire famously opened the working day with a mass sing-along, and claimed he'd previously sacked two people for not participating. A break-out star amongst the staff was tea-lady Hayley Pearce.[4] Pearce eventually opened a cafe (which she shut within a year)[5] and presented a number of shows for BBC. In 2016, she presented a show on 'tanorexia' - an over-reliance on fake tan.[6][7][8] In late 2016, a three part show called Hayley was released online on BBC3 (iPlayer), before airing on BBC One in January 2017. The show looked at issues facing the youth including cosmetic enhancement, boozy holidays and dating apps.[9]

The call centre is officially named Save Britain Money and is based in Swansea’s Enterprise Zone.[4] It employs approximately 600 staff.[4] In 2013, it received a considerable fine of £225,000 for breaching regulations on cold calling by failing to run their database past the Telephone Preference Service (TPS), an opt-in service that supposedly stops marketing calls.[10] In order to bypass these regulations on marketing calls, Wilshire set up an Indian call centre, which is outside the scope of British regulators. This was documented in a 2016 spin-off show for Watch called Nev's Indian Call Centre and saw staff from The Call Centre rejoin the cast.[11]