The research comes a day before new rules come into force requiring communications providers to do more to help their customers resolve their complaints.
According to the study by broadcasting and telecoms regulator Ofcom, 72% of T-Mobile and O2 customers are satisfied with the customer service provided by their mobile phone operator.
Of the other big mobile operators, 70% of Orange customers are satisfied with its customer service, 69% of Virgin Mobile and Vodafone mobile customers are satisfied, and 63% of 3 mobile customers are satisfied.
Ofcom said O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone had all seen "significant improvements in satisfaction levels" since 2009. More of 3’s customers contacted the company during the research period than any other operator and 3 had a higher proportion of complaints and fault issues.
In the pay-TV market BSkyB came out on top with a customer service satisfaction rate of 67%, ahead of rival Virgin Media, 62% of whose customers were satisfied.
Dissatisfaction with Virgin Media’s customer service has increased since 2009 to 16%, from 10%, which Ofcom said was mainly due to customers reporting lower than average satisfaction with customer service advisers.
Sky fared better and Ofcom said it appeared to have improved on most aspects of its customer service.
In February, Ofcom asked 3,000 people whether they had had to have any contact with their communications provider in the previous 12 months. An online panel survey was then completed by those people who had been in contact with their provider.
A spokeswoman for Ofcom said that although this was the first time the survey had been carried out since 2009, in future it would look to measure satisfaction rates every 12 months.
Orange had the highest customer satisfaction rate of the broadband service providers – at 76%, way ahead of its rivals. It had the largest proportion of satisfied customers of any of the services measured and was a big improvement from a 42% satisfaction rate in 2009.
Sky’s customers were the most satisfied of the landline providers, with customer satisfaction rate of 66%, compared with Virgin Media’s 59% and BT’s 58%. Ofcom said both BT and Sky had improved since 2009.
TalkTalk customers were least satisfied for both broadband and landline, at 52% and 53% respectively, for reasons such as not being able to get through to the right person, calls not being answered quickly enough, and general dissatisfaction with customer service advisors.
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