IELTS Customer Service
Outstanding customer service on a global scale
Congratulations to the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) team, from the School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies (LALS), which was nominated for an excellence in customer service award at the recent International IELTS conference. The team was the only nominee from New Zealand and one of only six centres nominated across the world (the others were located in Australia, Canada, India and Iran).
“This is well-deserved recognition of the outstanding work carried out by IELTS Administrator, Patrick Coelho, as well as the professional staff in LALS who work alongside him, especially Janet Attrill and Matthew Vink who field most of the customer queries,” says Head of School Associate Professor Meredith Marra.
Patrick attended the international conference held in Auckland in February where the nominees were announced.
“I was pleasantly surprised to find we were nominated. The nomination is a wonderful achievement for our team”, says Patrick.
Victoria has been involved in IELTS for 25 years. The test is the most popular measure of English language proficiency for higher education and global migration and is also the test used by Victoria for its international students. Recent changes to New Zealand immigration rules means LALS expects the number of test candidates coming through the centre to grow considerably. It has already begun to see some of this growth. In the past year the numbers of candidates sitting the test through Victoria has increased by almost 60 percent.
“It’s encouraging to know that we have a great team in place to ensure the 1000 plus candidates have a positive experience,” says Associate Professor Marra.