Pictured: whg Customer Contact Centre colleague Russell Mumford

There may be hundreds of call centres across the country, but whg's Customer Contact Centre has beaten off stiff competition to be named one of the nation's best.

The centre was announced as the 33rd best centre in the UK for customer service at a glittering ceremony in London.

The Top 50 Call Centres for Customer Service poll rates the service offered by UK companies and provides a benchmark so contact centres can measure themselves against what the public thinks a good calling experience should be.

It is compiled in conjunction with GfK Mystery Shopping and it was the first year whg has entered the league table. Its Customer Contact Centre, established in 2008, received 200 mystery shopping calls over a two month period with questions ranging from simple enquiries to complex scenarios.

whg will now receive a report detailing how they compare with other national contact centres and the chance to visit those that came in the top 10.

Helen Roberts, whg's Customer Services Manager, said: "We were over the moon to do so well in our first year of entering and will now look at how we can improve customer service even further to aim for a top 10 place next time.

"We thought it would be beneficial for us to see how we compare to organisations outside the housing sector and with contact centres of varying sizes and were delighted with how we did.

"Colleagues weren't aware that the mystery shopping calls were taking place so it really is proof of the excellent service provided to customers time after time."

The team of 23 colleagues working at the Customer Contact Centre handles 4,000 incoming customer enquiries each week and is responsible for 500 outbound calls.

An 0300 number was launched in 2008, with whg being the first business of its kind to do so, meaning customers always pay a local call rate, even from a mobile phone or when abroad to increase accessibility.