A full review of the corporate standards was carried out in 2000/01, which identified some areas for improvement. These included the need to make standards more focused on outcomes and customers, and developing more flexible ways of assuring quality.

In 2002-03 the new corporate standards were produced. This was done in partnership with two overseas offices and in consultation with a pool of experienced information managers in a wide range of British Council operations. Feedback from customers was incorporated.

We set our standards in relation to our corporate worldwide information customer service standards for call centres and enquiry work. We work to comply with or exceed these and have recently reviewed and updated our standards.

What to expect when you contact us
We answer all enquiries as quickly possible. We aim to answer 80 percent of calls within 30 seconds after the automated message, and we aim to answer 80 percent of e-mails within 3 working days. You can find full details of our customer service standards in our standards document.

How many enquiries we deal with
We answer nearly 40,000 enquiries a year, including over 19,000 calls and over 19,000  e-mails. These cover a variety of topics including the list of travellers scheme, the IELTS test, UK education, and studying English. For more details you can view our online statistics using the following details:

Username: Webuser
Password: Stats
PortalID: 5906656

Do we live up to expectations?
If you feel we have not met our standards or have exceeded our standards then we would like to know. Please contact us or do this online using our feedback form.