Caprice is in the shower. Jeremy is in the kitchen.

These are the kind of earth-shaking facts you've been missing if you haven't been tuning into the UK's latest dose of reality television: Celebrity Big Brother.

But it has gone down well at Llantarnam Park, where the Dial call centre has been handling the calls associated with the show.

The centre has a contract with Car Phone Warehouse, and the customer's landline brand, Talk Talk, is Big Brother's main sponsor.

Staff working on the account get into the mood by wearing CBB T-shirts, and a lucky few get tickets to attend Big Brother eviction parties.

So Aimee Sieczko, from Langstone, and Frances Kendall, from Griffithstown, headed up to Elstree Studios in London yesterday.

The women enjoyed a day off from selling Talk Talk contracts in an outbound (proactive) sales campaign.

Ms Kendall said: "It's a good account to work on because we get sales leads based on Car Phone Warehouse customers who take out mobile phone contracts. We call them and suggest they use Talk Talk for their landline needs. Talk Talk pledges it will beat BT tariffs over a three-month period or pay you 1,000."

When we spoke last Friday, both women were excited about the Big Brother party, and they have an idea of what to expect, as their colleagues, Suzanne Sadler, of Pontnewynydd, and Wendy Richards, of Newbridge, attended one of the parties last September.

Ms Richards said: "It was a fantastic night, I was dancing with Dan, one of the housemates. All the booze was free and they had the chocolate fondue fountain (which featured in the series as a reward for the house mates) working all evening."

Car Phone Warehouse has been a client of the Dial call centre for about 18 months. It is one of about half a dozen clients, which include British Gas and its Centrica parent, Yes Loans and Heaven & Earth Beauty Care.

Business is brisk, with about 300 chairs occupied out of a potential maximum of 350. "We're recruiting at the moment," said managing director Lionel Phillips, "because we're expecting another couple of campaigns to come in."

The workforce is divided into those handling inbound calls (for helpdesk, service- type operations) and outbound calls (for sales campaigns).

He's a bit disappointed that Dial has yet to pick up any Welsh accounts. "We're the only big outsourced call centre in Wales, all the other big ones just do their own in-house business."

Mr Phillips believes his company has benefited from a backlash over the off-shoring of business to Asia.

"Lots of firms have tried it, not liked it and returned to the UK.

"No matter how hard the Asian operators try to familiarise their workers with UK culture it will always be difficult for them."

Mr Phillips and his wife Sara Powell (from Pontypool) took over at Dial last spring. Effectively it was a management buy-out as Mr Phillips had been managing director of previous owner HBS' call centre operation.

"The firm had several contact centres around the UK but chose to divest itself of this one. I knew the potential it had so the opportunity was too good to miss."

The operation is based on a 7 million IT hub which makes phone, text, e-mail or Internet communications possible on a vast scale.

Nevertheless, Mr Phillips believes his most important asset is his staff. "We don't have a business without our people and we want them to feel as though it's their business - which it is.

"We have the flattest management structure you can imagine and we try to involve everybody in what we're doing."

The result of this, according to Mr Phillips, is an annualised staff turnover of 12 to 15 per cent, compared with typical industry figures of 25 to 40 per cent.

"This contact centre has been open for four years, and I'd say about 20 per cent of our staff have been here for the duration."

There's certainly an upbeat atmosphere on the office floor, and a pleasant surprise to those (like me) who imagined all call centres to be grim, nose-to-the-grindstone environments.

Like any successful double act, there's a division of labour between Mr Phillips and Ms Powell.

He concentrates on winning new business and leading the operation, while she focuses on recruitment and HR issues and on maintaining the building's facilities.

They both have extensive business experience in London and the Middle East, and in Sara's case this was (very usefully) in IT recruitment and advertising sales.