theartofservice

Hi everyone,

To follow up our previous blog entry promoting the entire ITIL V3 certification pathway being available via elearning at our site (www.theartofservice.org), here is sample of recent feedback from our happy elearning clients:

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Thank you.  Yes, I am using the book and the online online training modules.  I had previously bought a self study DVD for $400 from another vendor and found it absolutely useless.  The Art of Service is crisp in delivery of relevant information.  I highly recommend your program.

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Passed today with 90%!

A great thanks for your study guide and online course. I only had one weekend (literally day and night…) to prepare ‘coz I need it for a job application. No way could I have done it without your brilliant materials.

Thanks a lot!!!

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Hi all

Passed the ITIL V3 Foundation Exam with 98% (39/40), the book has everything you need to ace the exam. The depth and breadth of the book adequately covers the required material for the exam. Do not try and memorise instead study and fully understand the material covered. The book is well written and makes easy reading.

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Passed the ITIL V3 foundation exam today morning with a score of 85. I wanted to thank Tim and all the folks who have created the certification guide as well the computer based learning “Art of Service” online learning portal. Read the book and went thru the online learning multiple times and my work experience with software release and change management helped me understand the core principles and concepts.

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Passed the exam this morning.  The book, quizzes and sample exams were all very helpful.

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Thanks to everyone for taking the time to send or post their feedback. We’re glad the the materials we have developed have been valuable to so many clients looking to add another level of ITIL certification to their CV.

Best wishes,

The Art of Service

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Here are some recent examples of positive customer experiences in dealing with The Art of Service.

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Dear Ivanka, Here’s a revised version of the recommendation I wrote for you.

Details of the Recommendation: “Ivanka Menken offers outstanding customer service and I would highly recommend her and her company “The Art of Service”. I first got acquinted with Ivanka when I was preparing for my ITIL v3 Certification while viewing her video discussing ITIL v3. Ever since making contact, IIvanka has been so responsive to all my questions and requests. I credit Ivanka and all here colleagues who have developed “The Art of Service” materials in helping me achieve my ITIL certification! I highly recommend Ivanka as a top notch ITIL / ITSM expert who delivers high value customer service over and over again!”

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I was going through the community and found your profile. Just wanted to thank you that I have recently gone through the v3 Foundation CBTs. Found it very exhaustive and helpful. I scored 90%.

Thanks once again.

Abhisek

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In regards to the ITIL V3 Foundation Certification Kit:

This course was well worth the money. I have over 25 years in IT, hold an MS in Information Systems, and I hold the designations of PMP, CNE and MCSE. Believe me, I have paid a lot of money to achieve these designations. I got to take the online training at my own pace and then reinforce it by reading the material in the book. This set me up well to take the exam and I easily passed. I did have some problems initially with my setup, so I sent an email to the company and the customer service was great. I will most definitely take more training through this company.

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Our partners have recently shared their feedback with us following their experience of the Train the Trainer program. This is what they said…

“The Train The Trainers (TTT) course of The Art of Service is indeed more an Educate The Educators course. As ITIL consultants, we only expected to refine our current presentation techniques, abilities and skills but we got amazingly much more than we imagined! The course experience changed our teaching paradigms and challenged our potential human talents. Focus in the audience (e.g. get rid of the common protagonism), be alert to signals flowing in the classroom (e.g. read the body language) and make it professionally fun (e.g. use of relevant but ordinary life examples and constructive discussions) are just some of the valuable lessons we learned. After all, it is all about people and how to get them committed to maximize their learning experience, and that is exactly what Ivanka taught us. So, I really look forward to applying the approach and its arsenal of tools and good manners as soon as possible!”

“I think that the course was very good, Ivanka has a great knowledge of the Transition course. She knows the material, always answers all the questions and the examples and exercises that she makes in the course are very clear. Specifically in the trainers course, she gave us very good practices and advice that we can apply in our courses in order to be more efficient. In general terms, I am very satisfied with her training and with the course.”

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Elearning 1…

“I posted in my profile: ‘I am studying for ITIL V3 and loving it’ - this has spawned some questions and I have sent folks to Amazon for the materials and your website.”

Elearning 2…

“This course was well worth the money. I have over 25 years in IT, hold an MS in Information Systems, and I hold the designations of PMP, CNE and MCSE.

Believe me, I have paid a lot of money to achieve these designations.

I got to take the online training at my own pace and then reinforce it by reading the material in the book. This set me up well to take the exam and I easily passed.

I did have some problems initally with my setup, so I sent an email to the company and the customer service was great. I will most definately take more training through this company.”

A Program Interpreter…

“I would like to say what a pleasure it was interpreting your course. In these 12 years I have worked as an interpreter I have interpreted hundreds of speakers and trainers and have never seen such a high-quality, dynamic and captivating speaker as you. It is a true pleasure to interpret such a well prepared professional. You would be amazed to see how many people become speakers and/or trainers that don’t have any didactics or structure in their presentations, which makes our jobs as interpreters so much more difficult. It was a great pleasure working with you and congratulations for such a great you.

I look forward to working with you again in the near future.”

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A word from an elearn participant…

‘I just took and passed my ITIL V3 Foundation Exam. I want to put in a good word for your online learning site and the book.’

And a word (or two) from a program interpreter…

‘As an interpreter, I have had the opportunity of working with probably hundreds of facilitators from around the world, many of which are top specialists in their respective areas of expertise. Even though it has been a wonderful and enriching experience working with so many reknowned speakers, I must say that very few have the capacity to really get participants engaged and involved as Ivanka Menken of The Art of Service does.

Besides a wonderful sense of humour, she maximizes everybody’s performance by challenging participants every single instance during class, yet does this in such a magical and fun way that it is impossible to not want to get involved in the activities.

Interpreters always dread speakers who are unclear and lack objectivity in their speech. Even though the topics discussed in her classes were quite complex from a technical perspective, translating Ivanka was a rather simple and incredibly delightful task due to her direct way of addressing things in simple terms. Undoubtedly, she has a very special gift for presenting and teaching that very few people have.’

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Feedback from Amazon…

“Background: I bought this book and online study guide to help me achieve Foundation level certification as I’d previously worked in ITIL-based environments and wanted to formalise my learning.

The book is of a large format so everything’s got plenty of space to be laid out well. One or two typo’s remain but they’re only a minor irritant. The content is well presented and has lots of diagrams to usefully put topics into visual structures. However the material is quite dense as is surprisingly slim so lots of re-reading was required (by me with my technical background) and it occurred to me that a spiral-bound, ‘workbook’ format might have served me a little better - that’s just a personal preference.

The online material is straight-forward to access and navigate at a fine granularity and expands on the book’s content with additional diagrams and all-important quizzes to test knowledge acquired. The flash-format presentations have a relaxed commentary that’s easy to understand, especially if the pause button is used to review the graphics of each section.

I’m still working through it but am quite confident that within a few more days’ part-time study I’ll be ready for my exam as well as to talk confidently about, and use knowledge of, ITIL in work contexts.

I’ll certainly revisit this company’s offerings when I want to learn more and perhaps to pass further exams. In fact I’m about to take a look at other products to see which will support my current aims.”

All in all, it does more than it’s title suggests; top marks.

Feedback over the Phone…

“I just recieved a phone call from a very happy and impressed client. She is extremely impressed with the level of professionalism of The Art of Service - and the trainer in particular. All staff are so friendly and professional on the phone and the trainer created a product specifically for her needs that she is completely excited about!”

And Feedback via Email…

“I took the onsite courses from HP here in the US. But, found your book a nice ‘gap filler’ when I studied for the retake. I am seeing many more customers adopting ITIL in the last 6 months, and talking V3 instead of V2 so we all need to update our foundations to V3.”

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EXIN Brasil confirmed that on Friday November 28, the very first public ITIL V3 Intermediate exam for Operational Support & Analysis was held in Sao Paulo.

This course was an amazing experience for both the students and the instructor. The program was delivered in English and simultaneous translation was offered to make sure that every participant had the opportunity to absorb the new ITIL V3 content. The program was fun – there were lots of jokes and laughter – built on the ITIL v3 theory and was laced with practical exercises. It definitely made the participants think about the application of the theory and the five days were challenging and stretched the participants’ implementation skills.

But the week was not just about the ITIL theory; it was about implementation of the processes and functions of the Service Operation Lifecycle phase – it was about interfaces and interactions with the other lifecycle phases and specifically with the processes from Service Design and Service Transition. It was about IT Service Management in the context of business support, it was about Quality Management and compliancy to standards and business expectations.

We created training plans, tool requirement sets, business cases for project implementation and benefit statements for the processes and functions. After 5 days everybody was tired. But it was worth it! The exam was a success – EXIN organised a web-based exam so that the participants would receive their scores immediately. And everybody passed – 100% pass rate!

Individual scores were up to 90% (36 out of 40 points). This experiences strengthens the partnership between The Art of Service and PATH TTS in the South American market. The Art of Service’s course materials and expertise in adult education combined with PATH’s excellence in project management and implementation formed the basis for this perfect score… what a way to start our South American adventures!

Some comments from participants:

“The material developed by TAOS with the experience of Ivanka were the main critical success factors of this class”

“excellent experience, mix theory and exercises”

“a focus on processes that gives and excellent vision of the entire IT Service organisation”

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‘Thank you for your time on the phone this morning, your assistance has been wonderful. You have been a pleasure to deal with! It’s nice to see you working as a team. Hopefully I will have the opportunity to speak with you all in the near future.’

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‘I looked around for a training provider for my ITIL v3 Managers Bridge - it was difficult - especially considering the training and exam have only been live since March 2008.

I called several providers who were claiming to offer training: when i probed on the name of the instructor, references, success rates - there was very little or in several cases, no evidential data the course would deliver. My aims for training seemed quite simple - to learn, to network, to pass the exam.

In the end, I selected The Art of Service - based in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Why? Three reasons:

- they proudly show their passrate on the front page (global pass rate: 34%, The Art of Service pass rate: 75%)

- recommendation

- awareness and reputation from The Art of Service ‘Service Management Podcasts’

So how is the course so far? Simply excellent. Ivanka Menken is the trainer - she is a co-owner of the company and has been at the ‘coalface’ of Service Management delivery since ITIL v1 days. Good knowledge, personable, real work experience - and a good mix of training styles.’

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‘I was in a hurry when i filled out the feedback form for the V3 Foundation Course I recently completed so have supplemented it with this note.

I was very impressed and pleased with the course.

1. The material was very good

2. The constant revision helped me retain the material

3. The presenter (Tim Malone) was outstanding

Whether I passed or not I certainly learnt a lot and look forward to putting it into practice.’

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Feedback via email…

We’ve been talking about the joys in our professional lives. As ‘The Art of Service’ is one of mine, I mentioned your company in the conversation. That’s why I am taking the liberty to write this rather familiar email to you…

In my former professional life in the Belgian Defence IT Department, I used some of your products, with great pleasure. That’s why I love to keep in contact with The Art of Service!

I have now retired from the Army, where I built some experience in the field of implementing ITIL and good practices for better governance. As a certified ITSM Manager, I got a wonderful job at CTG. I would like to use your documentation & experience in the field of ITSM implementation, either ‘as is’ or adapted to my real needs on the field.

Regards from Belgium!

A touch of service… an email sent to our client liaison officer…

‘Thanks again. I do have to comment on your professionalism in this matter. Please pass on to your supervisor my gratitude and comments, I think that deserves a raise in pay or promotion.’

A note from one of our partners…

‘I have recieved the partner guide a few days ago, and it is really very professional. I believe we have made the right choice when we have partnered with you’.

And finally, a word from one of our elearning participants…

‘Thanks for the fast reply. I sure appreciate you guys being there for me - you truly are GEMS!!!!!!!!! Thanks a bunch!

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You are excellent! Thank you all for addressing my concerns and questions so quickly

- result of product purchase

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