A new poll asking people to rate call centres has revealed that banks’ call centres are the least likely to give rise to complaints about poor service.

But despite the positive reaction from people checking their UK current accounts, and performing other banking functions, more than a third of the people questioned in the Empirix survey said the levels of service they had received from call centres generally had declined over the past year.

People in the North East had the most aversion to contacting call centres, while Londoners had the greatest satisfaction level when they got through.

The worst for service were telecoms companies, but despite the emergence of Internet banking UK as a major medium for people to administer their UK current accounts, many still used call centres and 37% of respondents said that they got a good service from their banks using this channel.

The biggest complaint was having to wait too long for an answer, with 26% of those questioned saying that the delay before someone dealt with their query was ‘frustrating’. Some consumers looking to compare car insurance, for example, said that they waited far too long for a response to their call.

Claudia Hathway, editor of CCF magazine, which jointly organised the survey said: “Many of these findings are extremely worrying, but the only way call centres can counter negative coverage is to provide a standard of customer service to be proud of.”