Devon and Cornwall's police commissioner has slated the non-emergency 101 system as "patently inadequate" after an investigation found a fifth of callers wait more than 20 minutes for a full response.
In a report published today Tony Hogg said action was urgently needed to improve an "unacceptable" system.
But a senior police officer said there had been a "missed opportunity" to detail exactly what was 'acceptable' for a call centre handling thousands of both 999 and 101 calls daily.
Mr Hogg said he was concerned long delays in 101 may discourage people from calling in the first place.
"There is evidence that people are thinking 'why bother?" he said.
"This may breed apathy and disillusionment in the policing system."
He added: "The results (of the investigation) are that half of callers will wait more than 10 minutes. That is simply not good enough and wouldn't be tolerated in industry, so there's no reason we should tolerate in the police."
At present, calls to the 101 service are picked up by switchboard with 86% answered in 30 seconds.
However most are transferred to the force enquiry centre, with callers waiting an average of six minutes, half waiting 10 minutes and a fifth waiting longer than 20 minutes.
Mr Hogg said the call handlers were professional, well trained and focussed on providing the best possible service. However, he said they were being let down by a system which should perform better.
Chief Superintendent Jim Nye, commander of the operations department, accepted the report but said it only addressed timeliness rather than extent and quality of care given to victims.
The operations room deals with 600,000 non-emergency calls every year. The same team of operators deal with 999 emergencies, which on an ordinary day can number 500 but under circumstances like the winter storms can treble.
"Priority will always be given to 999 calls," said Chief Supt Nye.
"Any major incident will always generate a significant amount of 999 traffic into the contact centre and that builds delays into the 101 system."
Chief Supt Nye said the report had been a "missed opportunity" to detail what exactly was acceptable.
"I recognise the timeliness issue but it would have been nice to have some comment on what acceptable was," he said.
He said Devon and Cornwall Police are also well into a project to improve 101, which included an automated answering service and an online tracking system for crime.
