In the age of top-up fees, employment ratings and satisfaction surveys, the tables have turned on universities. No longer are students grateful for a place at their hallowed institution nor must they put up with fewer lectures or surly academics, because now the customer is king.

Naturally, this has long been the case in countries such as America and Australia, where high tuition fees have framed the student experience for several years and universities have had to fight hard to be enlisted in the global marketplace. Not only is more attention paid to bringing families into the university and supporting students, but in America, where parents bear much of their children’s financial burden, they are sent reports about their offspring’s academic progress.

British universities are realising they must do the same. Although they have stopped short of reports every term, universities such as Manchester, Edinburgh and Reading are bowing to this “parent power” and issuing guides to persuade all the family that theirs is the university of choice.

According to Baroness Deech, independent adjudicator for higher education, universities are also taking complaints seriously and educating students about the dangers of plagiarism.

If a complaint is made, they are aware that they must deal with the student on the principles of “fair and natural justice”, ie, ensuring that students get all the documents well before a board meeting, have fair notice of the meeting and that no apparently biased academic will preside over it.

Although her office was established a few years ago to handle student complaints against universities, Lady Deech has not seen them shoot up as rapidly as expected and says that last year they rose by about 11 per cent from about 500.

However, students certainly do have more comeback than they used to. If, for example, they feel that they have been marked down unfairly by a tutor, they can now complain to Lady Deech’s office, having been through the university’s procedures. In my case, a tutor took against me for having been privately educated and my marks plummeted. Horrified, I asked for remedial lessons, which were not forthcoming. When it came to the examinations, marked anonymously, I achieved a high 2:1.

I resolved to avoid his German classes for the rest of my days at Bristol, but said nothing to other tutors, fearing that any complaint would fall on deaf ears. “That is quite a typical case,” said Lady Deech. “The difficulty is proof, but in this case it sounds as if you had it. If a student feels like that he or she should channel a complaint through the university, and then it might eventually come to us. But they must complain when it happens and not after the degree, because by then it is too late.”

However, Lady Deech says she does not support the new student contract that is being drawn up by some universities. While this makes undergraduates aware there are obligations on both sides, she says that they are either too general or too specific to be of help. Her office will always consider a case if it is “fair and reasonable”.

Sheffield University has taken its students’ welfare a step further, by undertaking the controversial practice of “mystery shopping” to ensure that their colleagues are treating the students like the customers they have become. Consultants pose as would-be students to test the “customer care” skills of lecturers and departments. Two years ago, one such exercise, involving 169 telephone calls and 109 e-mail requests, revealed that the university had a long way to go.

One in five callers asking for information heard nothing, one in three who left voicemails was not called back and seven departments took more than a month to send material.

Sheffield has continued the practice every year ever since. Teesside has also followed suit and others are considering it.

Jane White, the deputy director of student, recruitment and marketing at Sheffield, says it embarked on the practice after it had been “mystery shopped” by others and decided to turn the exercise on itself.

“We wanted to ensure a consistency of service, because we know that students see themselves as receiving a service far more than they used to,” she says. “Colleagues are now much more aware they’re offering a service — and they’ve got much better since we started, but we will continue with it.”

From September 12, everyone will also be able to see how universities are rated by students themselves on www.unistats.co.uk. This has been put together with the Higher Education Statistics Agency and Ucas.

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