Telecoms firms provide the worst call centre service, the survey says

Some 40% of 1,600 people surveyed by communications firm Empirix said the level of service they had experienced had gone downhill in the last year.

People in the north east of England disliked contacting call centres the most, while Londoners were the least dissatisfied by the level of service.

Telecom firms provided the worst call centre service, the survey said.

Only 8% of those asked said that they had experienced a good service from call centres provided by phone companies.

By contrast, call centres representing the banking industry scored the best, with 37% of respondents saying they had had a good service.

'Extremely worrying'

Having to wait for an answer from call centre staff was the biggest source of complaint, with 26% of those asked saying that they disliked being left on hold for too long.

A quarter of respondents said they were unhappy dealing with call centres outside the UK.

A separate survey by Empirix of 100 call centre managers revealed that almost half believed the reputation of the industry had declined in the past 12 months, mostly because of poor customer service.

Claudia Hathway, editor of industry magazine CCF, which co-organised the survey, described many of the findings as "extremely worrying".

"It's easy to blame the media for bad publicity, but the only way call centres can counter negative coverage is to start providing a standard of customer service to be proud of," she said.