The Age newspaper's editor-in-chief Andrew Holden says the paper is acting to reduce the number of mistakes in its deaths notices.

Several readers of The Age called 774 ABC Melbourne to express their concern over the accuracy of notices in the paper's Tributes and Celebrations section.

The paper outsourced the section in October 2013 to an American company, which uses a call centre in the Philippines.

"They're making mistakes all the time," said one caller, Suzanne, who identified as a wedding and funeral celebrant.

"It must be ghastly for people."

Another caller, a funeral director, said the notices were being produced in American English and "impossible" deadlines meant notices were often not printed in a timely manner.



Outsourced death notice error: Over the last 75 years it has been my privilege and delight to have Joan as a steadfast and loving friend, a source of inspiration. John will be sadly missed. The Age, Saturday May 10, 2014

Mr Holden said the paper has taken steps to stop such errors happening in the future.

"I don't think anybody here would deny that it's been a difficult transition," he said.

"There were certainly some awful errors which I've been made aware of over the last couple of months.

"We met with the funeral directors association back in February and as a consequence of that chat we took three of the leading people here in Melbourne... to the call centre in Manila.

"I'm told last week [there] was a 99 per cent accuracy rate for the funeral notices."

Mr Holden said The Age would continue to outsource its call centre.