Thanks: Exam room staff

[csparksfly]

Hi,

I would like to commend the exam room staff for helping out beyond what I thought was possible.

I had booked to write on Thursday 13:00 (30 April 2009), by sending a fax with the proof of payment a week before. I knew there was a seat available, as I confirmed it telephonically before booking. For some reason, I never followed up to confirm the actual booking until the Thursday morning, when I called, only to hear that I was not on the list! Confessing that I failed to confirm timeously and begging, they said that they will see if they can get me a seat after all. I was contacted and confirmed that a seat was available.

Leaving Centurion at 12:00, I got stuck in very bad traffic. I called the exam room, explained my situation and negotiated a later exam commencement time for me of 13:30. I arrived at the CAA exam room at 13:20, only to find a line of students waiting outside the rooms. It appeared that there was system glitch at the 11:00 session - some of the students were asked to write at 13:00. Nevertheless, the exam room staff managed to accomodate all 9 of us afterall!

Exam room staff: Hereby please accept my appreciation in going the extra mile, given the circumstances beyond your immediate control.

Not mentioning names, as I think the staff as a unit should be commended. I think they have very tough and usually angry, irritated customers, which in my opinion requires special people to handle this kind of stress. I hope most of us writing exams in the future remember to note their frustrations to the appropriate channels, and not cheapishly take it out on the exam room staff(as I have seen). Perhaps the "powers that be" could spend some time to evaluate the current process and implement better processes to avoid having to manage angry, irritated customers.

Regards,

Craig Sparks

[Colin Jordaan]

Dear Craig
Thank you for your letter of appreciation for service provided to you by the examinations department. I have passed this on to their managers and to the staff members concerned.
On the day in question, there was no glitch, we were simply accommodating standby candidates. If however, you have any concrete suggestions on how to improve the process that you encountered, we would be very happy to entertain them.
Best regards
Colin

[csparksfly]

Hi Colin,

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to add some suggestions.

Being an "Exam writing client", the biggest frustration for me, and it appears, many others, is to get a booking. Could you not let Computicket handle the bookings for you? Clients can book/check availability, confirm, and pay at once. Doing it like this will safe your staff alot of time to do other things.

In my opinion, the booking strain is the biggest, and once it has been solved, some other issues might go away too.

Regards,
Craig.

[Colin Jordaan]

Dear Craig
Our new website will have the facility to check availability and to make bookings online (without the Computicket fee). Since the introduction of the 3rd exam session at Midrand, waiting time has now been reduced to two days.
The original website tender was rejected by our Board and we are sending out a revised one soon.

[csparksfly]

Thank you sir.