Madame Dauphin is calling from Paris with a problem about her brand new computer. The woman that answers the phone solves her problem in perfect French. "Quelle gentille jeune fille," she thinks.
In fact, the nice young woman is not a fille, but a cailin. An Irish woman who answers hundreds of such queries from her place of work in Dublin or Cork or Galway every day. All around her are hundreds of young people speaking Spanish and Swedish and German. This cailin works in a call centre.
A call centre is defined as an operation dedicated to the creation and maintenance of customer relations over the telephone. They can be used for anything from taking orders (manufacturing), making reservations (airlines), and offering technical support (computers).
Since the late 1980s, Telecom Eireann - which provides much of the high tech equipment needed for such centres - recognised that the call centre industry provided an important means of employing large numbers of people. With this in mind, they sent staff to train in call centres in the US.
Meanwhile, IDA Ireland, the country's main job promotion agency, had also been analysing the burgeoning global call centre industry. With considerable foresight it predicted that many of the companies involved would start making moves to consolidate their telephone services.
A report in this newspaper last year quoted an IDA source who explained why the agency aggressively pursued some of the top services companies around the world and persuaded them to establish call centres in Ireland. "We weighed it up and saw that the sector provided high-volume employment. We recognised that it was higher risk, more mobile than others, but it could provide jobs for people with just Leaving Cert, and we needed that," he said.
IDA Ireland and Telecom Eireann worked together to achieve this aim with some considerable success. Today 100 Irish based call centres serving the pan-European market employ approximately 12,000 people around the State.
Apart from Europe other markets that are serviced from Ireland include South Africa, the Middle East and the US. A medium sized call centre can generate more international calls than an average Irish city.
One of the first multinationals to set up a call centre here was computer manufacturer, Dell. It has been based here for almost six years, serving the UK and Irish market and employing 650 people. Ironically, last year the Irish team of call centre agents in Dell won an award for best direct sales team - in the UK.
PR manager Ms Annette Condon says that the fact there was an English-speaking, IT-literate workforce and a good telecommunications infrastructure in place made Ireland attractive.
While another company servicing the UK market is believed to have trained its agents in BBC English, worried that the Irish accent might turn them off, Dell customers often call looking for "that nice Irish woman". "They don't realise they are onto a call centre that is full of nice Irish people," says Ms Condon.
While many call centres have their headquarters in Dublin, one company which provides a variety of services for businesses and tourists, is based in Killorglin, Co Kerry.
Irish success story Fexco employs 150 people at its new 24-hour information technology and services centre where customers such as Coca Cola, Guinness and Gulliver Tourism Services avail of the multilingual, well-educated workforce who answer around two million calls per year.
According to a spokesman, Fexco's growth is an example "of what can be achieved in a small town in rural Ireland ... The development of communications technology allows the work to be brought to the people where they can operate in a manner that suits their circumstances," he said.
Computer manufacturer Gateway established its European headquarters in Dublin in October, 1993. It was attracted here, says human resources manager Mr Joe Banks, by a bright, young, educated workforce that had the right cultural fit for the company. IDA Ireland ensured that other incentives were built into the package in a bid to woo them and other multinationals here.
Gateway currently employs almost half its 1,600 staff in its Dublin call centre. Staff there take calls from six main markets - the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands.
According to Mr Banks the only blot on an otherwise picturesque landscape is the delay in setting up post-Leaving Cert language courses to fuel the multi-lingual labour force. An estimated 30 per cent of all call centre employees are foreign nationals. Recently, one- and two-year post-Leaving Cert language courses have been introduced to fill the gap. "Better late than never," says Mr Banks.
While the call centre industry has been spearheaded to a large extent by multinationals, there are plenty of indigenous companies from banks to travel agencies getting in on the act.
VHI, the State's largest health insurance provider, receives around 4,000 calls a day - one call every 10 seconds - to its call centres all over the country. According to a spokesperson: "Staff are made up of multi-skilled teams. There are ongoing mentoring and coaching programmes in place. Training is vitally important. We have to be able to satisfy our 1.4 million customers."
There is no end to the possibilities given the rapidity with which telecommunications industry is developing. The future is likely to see call centres moving into more remote areas of Ireland as teleworking - where people work outside the office usually from their homes - becomes a more popular job structure.
And things are set to get even more innovative. Last year when two cosmonauts on the Mir space station placed an online order for two pentium computers, Gateway became the first vendor in history to receive an on-line order from space. It's sales Jim, but not as we know it.
Next week Business 2000 will look at the latest Irish companies to float on the stock market
