Customer Service Statistics UK (2026)
UK customer service statistics for 2026: satisfaction index scores, complaint volumes, contact benchmarks and waiting times, each with its published source.
Updated . Refreshed each quarter. Citations welcome.
Key statistics
UK Customer Satisfaction Index score in July 2026, up 1.0 point year on year but only 0.1 points above January 2026.
Published research. Online survey of over 15,000 UK consumers covering 59,500 customer experiences across 277 organisations and 13 sectors, fieldwork 17 September to 17 October 2025 and 9 March to 7 April 2026.
complaints reported by financial services firms to the FCA in the second half of 2025.
Regulatory return. Down 0.4% on the 1.83m reported in 2025 H1, and broadly flat between 1.7m and 2.0m every half year since 2021.
new complaints received by the Financial Ombudsman Service in 2025/26, almost 30% fewer than the year before.
Regulatory casework data. Down from 305,700 in 2024/25. 30% of resolved complaints were upheld.
average time to reach a mobile customer service agent, down from 2 minutes 24 seconds a year earlier.
Published research, 2024 data. Ofcom's eighth comparison of telecoms customer service, published May 2025.
share of UK consumers willing to pay more for a higher level of customer service, against the share who are price sensitive above all.
Published research from the same UKCSI dataset, so roughly three times as many prioritise service over price.
About this report
The July 2026 UK Customer Satisfaction Index, published by the Institute of Customer Service, stands at 78.3 out of 100. That is a fourth consecutive six month rise and a full point up on July 2025, but only 0.1 points above January 2026, which the Institute itself describes as a levelling off. Banks and building societies reached 82.0 and overtook retail as the top rated sector for the first time since the Index began in 2008.
On complaints, the two most reliable UK series are regulatory. Financial services firms reported 1.74 million complaints to the Financial Conduct Authority in the second half of 2025, and the Financial Ombudsman Service received 214,600 new complaints in 2025/26, almost 30% fewer than the year before. Ofcom's most recent comparison of telecoms customer service puts satisfaction with complaint handling at 61% for mobile and 58% for broadband, and average call waiting time at 1 minute 52 seconds for mobile.
This page covers satisfaction index scores and sector performance, complaint volumes and complaint handling, contact and call benchmarks, service expectations and waiting times, and what poor service costs a business. Every figure names its publisher, the report it came from and the period it measures. Sources used are the Institute of Customer Service UKCSI, the Financial Conduct Authority, the Financial Ombudsman Service, Ofcom and the Office for National Statistics.
Journalists, analysts and business owners are welcome to quote any figure here. Please cite the original publisher listed beside the statistic rather than citing Boafo Agent as the source of third party research.
See also: UK missed call statistics, including unanswered call rates by sector.
Related UK research and tools
- Missed call statistics UK. Cited UK data on unanswered call rates, sector variation and the estimated cost of a missed call.
- Small business phone answering statistics. Cited data on how smaller UK firms handle inbound enquiries.
- All Boafo Agent research and guides. Other cited UK resources on enquiry handling and customer contact.
UK Customer Satisfaction Index (UKCSI)
The UKCSI is the national customer satisfaction benchmark, published twice a year by the Institute of Customer Service since 2008. It scores 277 organisations and organisation types across 13 sectors on a consistent set of measures, using an online survey of more than 15,000 consumers representative of the UK adult population. Because each edition combines two fieldwork waves into a rolling measure, compare it against the same month a year earlier rather than against the previous six months alone.
UKCSI score in July 2026, out of 100.
Published research. A fourth successive six month rise and close to the highest score recorded since the Index launched, 78.4 in 2022.
year on year change in the UKCSI, against just 0.1 points over the previous six months.
Published research. The Institute describes the rate of improvement as having significantly slowed.
score for banks and building societies, the highest rated sector for the first time since 2008.
Published research. Retail had led every edition since launch. Six of the 13 sectors rose by more than a point year on year.
score for the highest rated individual organisation, Nationwide, followed by John Lewis on 87.1 and first direct on 86.0.
Published research. Organisation level scores are published for 277 organisations and organisation types.
UK customer complaint statistics
Regulated sectors are the only part of the UK economy that publishes complaint counts on a fixed schedule, which makes financial services and telecoms the most dependable public window on service failure. These figures cover the sectors named and should not be read as a cross industry UK complaint rate, because no publisher produces one.
complaints reported by financial services firms to the FCA in 2025 H2, covering 1 July to 31 December 2025.
Regulatory return, excluding consumer credit complaints submitted on the separate CCR return. Down 0.4% on 2025 H1.
of complaints closed by FCA regulated firms in 2025 H2 were upheld, down from 57.9% in 2025 H1.
Regulatory return. Uphold rate is decided by the firm, not by the ombudsman.
redress paid by FCA regulated firms in 2025 H2, a 16.9% fall on the £284m paid in 2025 H1.
Regulatory return.
new complaints escalated to the Financial Ombudsman Service in 2025/26, with 30% upheld.
Regulatory casework data for the year to 31 March 2026. Hire purchase for motor finance was the most complained about product at 37,700 cases, ahead of current accounts at 32,900 and credit cards at about 22,800.
of broadband and mobile customers respectively said they had a reason to complain, both up on 2022.
Published research, 2024 data. Broadband was 20% and mobile 12% in 2022, so the volume of complaint triggers rose even as handling improved.
satisfaction with complaint handling for mobile, broadband and landline, all significantly above the just over 50% recorded in 2022.
Published research, 2024 data. Provider level results ranged from 68% at the best performing mobile provider to 51% at the lowest.
UK business customer contact and call benchmarks
There is no authoritative universal UK benchmark for calls or contacts per customer per year. No government body or regulator publishes one, and the reason is structural: contact volume depends on how often a product is bought, how complex it is, whether it is regulated, and how well the self service journey works, so a utility, a dental practice and a haulier are not measurable on one scale. What the UK does publish is contact outcome data by sector, which is the usable proxy. Read these as sector benchmarks for how contact is handled, then measure your own volume from your own phone system and enquiry logs over a full month.
industry average wait to reach a mobile customer service agent, improved from 2m 24s the previous year.
Published research, 2024 data. Six of the nine mobile providers in the report cut their average wait during the year.
industry average wait to reach a broadband or landline agent, 13 seconds worse than the year before.
Published research, 2024 data. Telecoms is one of the few UK sectors where waiting time is published per provider.
complaints to Ofcom per 100,000 mobile customers, depending on the provider.
Regulatory data, 2024. This normalised rate is the closest published UK equivalent to a contact benchmark, and the range shows how wide provider variation is within one sector.
complaints to Ofcom per 100,000 broadband customers, depending on the provider.
Regulatory data, 2024. Broadband generates several times the normalised complaint rate of mobile, which is why cross sector comparisons mislead.
What good service is worth, and what poor service costs
The Institute of Customer Service links satisfaction scores to commercial outcomes in the same dataset, which is the most defensible UK evidence on the value of service. The staffing figure below is our own calculation from published pay data and is labelled as such.
likelihood of recommending an organisation among customers who score it 9 or 10 for service, against those who score it 8.
Published research. The same data shows retention of 97.0% against 65.8%, so a score of 8 is not a safe result.
average net current account gains for banks and building societies scoring at least a point above their sector average, while those a point below lost 3,098 on average.
Published research covering 1 October to 31 December 2025, combining UKCSI scores with current account switching data.
average sales growth for food retailers outperforming their sector by at least a point in the UKCSI, against overall market growth.
Published research for the 12 weeks to 17 May 2026. It is a correlation between service scores and sales, not a proven causal effect.
indicative fully loaded cost of one part time UK customer service adviser.
Boafo Agent calculation based on ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings median pay for customer service occupations, with employer National Insurance and pension contributions added. It is an illustrative planning figure, not a published ONS statistic.
Consumer confidence and spending context for 2026
The UKCSI tracks consumer confidence alongside satisfaction, which matters when interpreting service investment decisions in 2026. Confidence weakened over the first half of the year even as satisfaction edged up.
of UK consumers expect their personal finances to be better in a year, down from 43% six months earlier.
Published research. The Institute reports the sharpest falls among more affluent, financially secure customers.
expect the UK economy to be in better shape in a year, down from 31% six months earlier.
Published research from the same UKCSI consumer confidence tracker.
say it is a bad time to buy major items, up from 31% in January 2026.
Published research. Falling confidence feeds directly into willingness to commit to big ticket purchases.
Methodology and citations
This resource is compiled and maintained by the Boafo Agent team and was last reviewed on 10 September 2026. It is a review of published third party research and regulatory data. Boafo Agent did not conduct any of the surveys or collect any of the regulatory returns quoted here, and does not present third party research as its own.
Figures fall into three labelled categories. Published research or regulatory data means a survey, index or return released by the named publisher. A Boafo Agent calculation means we combined published inputs, and the detail line states which inputs and what was added. Illustrative or indicative means a planning figure rather than a measurement. No Boafo Agent customer data appears on this page.
Sources are chosen in this order: the publisher of the original dataset first, then the publisher's own press release or summary, and secondary summaries only where a primary page is not public. Preference goes to UK national bodies and regulators, specifically the Institute of Customer Service, the Financial Conduct Authority, the Financial Ombudsman Service, Ofcom and the Office for National Statistics.
Definitions differ between publishers. UKCSI scores measure satisfaction with a specific organisation in the previous three months. FCA and Ombudsman counts are complaints formally recorded, not all dissatisfaction. Ofcom results are residential telecoms customers only. Figures from different publishers should therefore be quoted with their own source attached rather than combined into a single national benchmark.
Figures we could not trace to a named publisher have been removed rather than restated, including a £9 billion per month cost of poor service, an 82% one hour response expectation, a 57% single strike switching rate, a 69% voicemail refusal rate, a 17% six month problem incidence, and AI adoption and small business priority percentages previously attributed to Salesforce, Twilio and the Federation of Small Businesses. They have not been replaced with estimates of our own.
Citation block
Copy this and use it in your article, deck or report. Replace the figure with the statistic you want to quote.
According to Boafo Agent's Customer Service Statistics UK (2026) (updated 2026-09-10), [statistic here]. Source: https://boafoagent.com/customer-service-statistics-uk
Frequently asked questions
What is the current UK Customer Satisfaction Index score?
The July 2026 UKCSI is 78.3 out of 100. That is up 1.0 point on July 2025 but only 0.1 points above January 2026, which the Institute of Customer Service describes as a levelling off after four successive six month rises.
What is the UKCSI and who publishes it?
The UK Customer Satisfaction Index is published twice a year by the Institute of Customer Service and has run since 2008. It scores 277 organisations and organisation types across 13 sectors using an online survey of more than 15,000 UK consumers, with each edition combining two fieldwork waves into a rolling measure.
Which UK sector has the best customer service?
Banks and building societies, at 82.0 in July 2026. It is the first time since the Index began in 2008 that retail has not led. At organisation level Nationwide scored 87.3, ahead of John Lewis on 87.1 and first direct on 86.0.
How many customer complaints are made in the UK each year?
There is no single national total. The most reliable published series are regulatory: financial services firms reported 1.74 million complaints to the FCA in the second half of 2025, and the Financial Ombudsman Service received 214,600 new complaints in 2025/26. Both cover financial services only.
Is there a UK benchmark for calls or contacts per customer per year?
No authoritative universal UK benchmark exists. Contact volume depends on purchase frequency, product complexity, regulation and self service quality, so sectors are not comparable on one scale. The usable published proxies are Ofcom's complaints per 100,000 customers and its average call waiting times, alongside your own monthly call and enquiry logs.
How long do UK customers wait to reach an agent?
In Ofcom's most recent published comparison, using 2024 data, the industry average wait was 1 minute 52 seconds for mobile, down from 2 minutes 24 seconds a year earlier, and 2 minutes 1 second for broadband and landline, 13 seconds worse than the year before.
Does better customer service actually increase revenue?
The UKCSI evidence shows a strong association. Customers scoring an organisation 9 or 10 are 94.8% likely to recommend it against 54.3% for a score of 8, and food retailers outperforming their sector by at least a point grew sales 4.3% against a 2.3% market average. These are correlations in published data rather than proof of cause.
Can I quote these statistics?
Yes. Please cite the original publisher listed beside each figure, together with the report and period given in the detail line.
Need help tracing a figure?
If you are writing about this topic and need the original publication behind a figure, the sample size or the definition used, get in touch and we will point you to the source. We do not publish our own survey data.