April 25, 2009

Hi KE,

With regards to our phone conversation earlier this morning, thank you for arranging the change of classroom for today. Room 10 is much much better in terms of environment and furniture compared to Room 11. please continue to arrange Room 10 for our lessons for the remaining 3 weeks.

There are a few incidents which I hope you can work with your team next week because it has given us some very bad impressions on New Horizons

A. Jack Ooi
Being the sales consultant, i would expect Jack to faciliate us even after we “signed” the deal. it has been very disappointing. Jack fits the image of a “insurance agent” who just want to clinch the deal and forget about everything after that. On April 18th, i requested your front desk to contact Jack ( i was told he is out of Town ) anytime during the week to help us make arrangement for a change of class room. To date, i have not heard a single response from him. Jack is forever missing, maybe he is SO BUSY with his clients that I am not too sure. Considering we have signed education courses with New Horizons for about 30 students on an average of 2 courses each , I would expect at least some post-sales follow up. It could be your operations manager. Whichever the case, we are left stranded on our own figuring out what we should do when we are stuck with problems on the facilities.

B. Classroom facilities
Room 11 is not siutable to be a classroom for textbook teaching based on the following reasons
1. The table space is occupied by the CRT monitor and the keyboard and leaves very little space for the file and textbook that we are supposed to use for the lessons

2. The hydraulic chairs are creaking whenever you moved or lean back. This causes everyone to be focusing more on their sitting position rather than the class because the creaking noise is really very distracting to others. Some of the chairs seems like they have been around since 1980 if you look at the condition and the stains on it.

3. Because of the CRT monitors, students sitting at the back of the class has portion of their views blocked. The best way is to stick their neck up high or peak in between 2 CRT monitors.

C. Course Materials
We just got to know the course materials have a few chapters missing. Is this part of Sales Consultant Job Scope or Operations Consultant? Jeffrey Loo promised to fill in the missing parts to us by email today. I have yet to checked.

D. Receptionist on Duty April 25th.
When i got to find out that the classroom this morning is going to be Room 11, i was a little bit annoyed and requested your front desk for assistance. I find a few reasons she give me a little too hard to believe. This is what she has mentioned

1. I was not here last week , i am not sure who follow up with you. ( Am i supposed to remember everyone in the education organisation ? )

2. We dont have name cards of our sales consultants. ( I requested for Jack and Tracy name card, i was told there isnt any name cards on the front desk. I find it surprising. How do you handle walk in sales in that case? )

3. I couldnt get Tracy on the phone . ( But 30 seconds after she tried , i asked for the number and i got her the first time immediately )

All in all, it is a very bad experience. We are seriously considering if we should proceed with ITIL with new horizons or engage another Education provider. Jeffrey Loo is a terrific instructor , if the facilities and your service staff can treat us like REAL customers , I think the overall experience with New Horizon will be an enjoyable one for everyone. We are really expecting better facilitation considering New Horizons is a Nasdaq listed company, has 300 locations in 60 countries and is a world leader in computer training.

This email is sent by me but at least 15 out of the 19 people have the same thoughts.
I await for your response .

Regards,
Andy Chan
A dissatisfied PMP Student

Today is the 2nd lesson of a 5 part series to Project Management Professionals. I decided to drive to work today and pay that $11 car park fees because the reading materials are too heavy and bulky. haha I am so spoilt.

A lot of team activities and classroom work today. Learnt how to do a Project Charter, Work Breakdown Structure and Stakeholder analysis diagram. I cant wait to finish the classes and get my certification. Feels good to be studying again!

Check my l ater posts on the unhappiness with the services rendered by the EducationProvider. I am supposed to draft a email to the Sales Director which i will be doing right after posting this.

QB meet me after my class as she is rushing her Q1 report in the office. Since we are so near to the south, we decided to go to Keppel Bay @ Marina for dinner and some chill out. We didnt realise there is a Boat Asia 2009 there this weekend. It is super crowded but i still manage to drive in and get a lot in the Yacht Club. One of those yachts costs at least 300-400k SGD. OMFG! Will i ever own one of these?