Ola Customer Street

Its been an exciting but very busy time for me as a director of Customer Street. Currently we are working on expanding the Customer Street network of operations to other European countries with new sales offices, the first being Spain.

One of the challenges of opening in another market, albeit in part of the European Union is to work out the labour law peculiarities and believe me there are plenty.

Did you know that our Spanish cousins are paying 31% NI contributions plus their tax. Now apparently this manifests itself in lower salaries for the citizens because the employers who choose to employ people on full time contracts cannot afford to pay the same salaries as the UK and still pay the NI contribution. Its a good job the beer is cheaper there! Because of the tax position, employers choose not to move to Spain and then there is less tax revenue to collect so the rates stay high. Its a vicious circle.

Hopefully soon we will be the proud owners on a new 40-50 person call centre in the Spanish sunshine. Unfortunately for me, my job does not allow me much opportunity to visit the satellite offices but I can dream. Look out for Customer Street (SL).