Rating website raterAgent has unveiled a new monthly benchmark which shows the areas where people are happiest with their agent.

The new raterIndex is based on reviews posted on raterAgent and elsewhere on the internet.

Although published for the first time, raterAgent has actually been compiling its ‘top ten’ since January.

The first scores on the doors show Buckinghamshire in first place, followed by Hertfordshire, Wales, Bedfordshire, Gloucestershire, Lanashire, Surrey, Dorset, North Yorkshire and East Sussex.

The average rating for Buckinghamshire – otherwise known as Trevor Kent county – is 4.86.

Hertfordshire and Wales also performed strongly, with increases in client satisfaction from 4.05 and 4.12 to 4.50 and 4.66 respectively.

North Yorkshire – part of God’s own country – drops from third to ninth in terms of customer feedback whilst the royal county of Berkshire – September’s first-placed county with 4.58 average – drops out of the top 10 having managed only 3.47 on average this month.

Overall the average rating for all agent branches, from the raterIndex’s statistically-significant survey of thousands of reviews across the UK, improved from 3.88 in September to 4.08 in October.

raterAgent CEO Mal McCallion said: “What is perhaps most notable about the raterIndex is the strong endorsement of estate and letting agents in general that their clients provide.

“An average of over four out of five, across thousands of reviews left for agents in October, proves that the perception of many – of an industry out of touch with its client base and distrusted by it – could not be further from the truth.

“Agents are providing a 4-star service on average and that should be the message that the industry ensures is heard, not the individual bad apples that can frequently be portrayed as a signifier of wider problems across the board.”