More than three quarters of Australian telecoms customers say they are happy with their service – but the figure is down on the previous quarter.

The figures come from the latest Telecommunications Customer Satisfaction Survey, from the Communications Alliance.

The research, conducted alongside Roy Morgan Research, found a similar number (74%) were satisfied when it came to the ease of contacting their provider, while more than four in five (83%) had no complaints when it came to understanding their monthly bills. Customer satisfaction with the information provided on telecoms products was at 82%.

This is where the good news ends, however. When it came to handling complaints, the satisfaction figures continue to go down, to 60%. This compares unfavourably with the antepenultimate and penultimate quarters where the figure was 66%, but holding steady from the previous quarter’s 61%. One in five respondents (21%) said they were dissatisfied with their provider’s customer service in some way, with 9% saying they were ‘very dissatisfied’.

Alongside satisfaction rates, the research also examined user trends. 98% of users had a mobile phone for their personal use compared to 71% for a landline or VoIP phone – although this was a slight uptick on previous quarters. Telstra remains the eminent telco in Australia cited by 46% of respondents, compared with Optus (30%), BigPond (27%) – a Telstra product – and Vodafone (13%). When comparing users under 30, Telstra (42%) and Optus (41%) were far ahead of Telstra/BigPond (21%) and Vodafone (14%).

The Alliance said that overall the results were ‘mixed’ for this quarter, with some metrics ‘highlighting areas for industry improvement’. You can check out the full results here (pdf).

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