County Contact Centres (CCC), the call centre software developer and services provider, discovered the downside of being a small company as it is closing its Romanian call centre due to lack of financial resources. The company, which announced improved turnover of £1.37m (£722,560) and a conversion of a £206,658 pre-tax loss into a £2,543 pre-tax profit for the interim period to December, now concedes it will report a loss for the second half. The shares fell 30% on the news to 10p. A number of issues set CCC back. At the beginning of the second half, a 'post-Christmas lull' was caused by a major client taking significant call volumes in-house. On top of this, an anticipated recovery in sales, particularly in the multi-lingual contracts that much of its Bucharest office depended on, failed to emerge. The Bucharest office was opened in the first half with a staff of 30 and it was hoped it would contribute significantly to sales, as all call operators were fluent in English, which combined with telephony technology was supposed not to sound like an outsourced foreign call centre. Sales for Ansaback and its CallScripter software division will be ahead of last year but the costs of the closure and lower-than-expected call traffic will create the loss. The shares are still 2.25p higher than our last recommendation in February 2004, but reduce exposure to the shares, as it could be a while before further growth is made.