Élan Guides 6:59 PM (10 minutes ago) to me Hi ****, Thanks for reaching out to us. We should have the books and the video USBs shipped out to all customers within 7-8 days. We have learned from this experience and will definitely be making changes and improvements going forward. Yes Elan has been acquired by Wiley. Basit and Peter will continue to be involved with the materials to ensure that our materials are the best in the industry. Other aspects of the business should also improve under Wiley. Let me know if there is anything else I can do for you. Thank you so much for your patience and cooperation in the matter. Feel free to share this information with your fellow candidates. Have a nice day! On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 6:10 PM, **** wrote: Dear Elan Guides / Mr. Shajani, I have been working my way through the Elan materials for Level 2 and am very happy with the materials. Like many of your other customers, I have gotten the first two printed books, and am eagerly awaiting the rest. When can I expect to receive them? Also, on Analyst Forum, there is a discussion going where it seems some people are unhappy due to the study materials delay. They mentioned that Elan was acquired by Wiley and were speculating as to the reasons for the acquisition. Rather than speculate, I thought I would ask about this acquisition. Is this to improve upon what is already available (i.e. give Elan better distribution capabilities) and will Basit and Peter Olinto continue to make the materials? If you can answer me, I’d be happy to post the answer on Analyst Forum (if it’s OK with you), and hopefully that will allay my concerns and the concerns raised on the forum. Thank you. Regards, ****
I also emailed Elan a question regarding a concept within the material and was pleasantly surprised to receive this reply back within 1 day:
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Hi John, You are correct. Amortized cost = Historical cost - Premium + Discount
So if no information is provided on whether an HTM security has been issued at a premium or a discount, the amortized cost would simply be equal historical cost. Hope that clears it up!
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It seems like most of the emails follow a similar pattern and I hope I can add credibility to the emails people have been posting from Elan.
I understand you are unhappy with their service thus far, and I’m sure they would agree. But you gotta admit, their material is top notch. I used Schweser for level II last year and in my opinion, Elan blows them out of the water (in terms of material anyway).
After following the post for awhile, I have decided to chime in. Not in regards to the original situation exactly, but rather dealing with customer service departments in general. Just for background, I am currently working for a large, US mutual fund company in investor services. My day consists of speaking with direct investing retail investors via phone all day long.
Client services is not out to get you or to make your situation worse, they exist to try to be of help and have every incentive to do so. There are times where circumstances limit response time and availability to help. If you are respectful of them and measured in your response, no matter where the mistake may lay, they will be willing to do whatever in their power to satisfy you. The second you begin to try to place blame, the intial reaction is to become defensive and they will be less inclined to help. Be concencious of the fact that they may have many customers who MAY have bigger problems than your own (this is generally speaking, I am not offering an opinion wheter this is an urgent matter or not). I know this may seem as common sense, but we all are guilty of think about our personal situations not in respect to the greater picture of all the customers being attended to and you have no idea how great of an impact being measured and kind, despite the possibilty of being wronged can make.
On a final note, and I hope you view the following in isolation to my coments above, I used Schweser for Level I for this past December and made the switch to Elan for Level II (their videos were the deal breaker). Their material is fantastic and despite not receiving my hard copies yet, which is definitely my preference, using the soft copies in the meantime has been a small inconvenience to pay for what I believe is a superior product.
Again, I am only sharing my opinon on the product mostly as a disclosure but as an individual who speaks with satisfied and dissatisfied client for a living, I hope you take my insight with serious consideration.
Respectfully,
“Thank you for calling XYZ, my name is ABC, how may I help you?”
Also, I have emailed them and gotten a response back within less than 24 hours. I think they are operating some where on the side of the planet. Its okay.
Does anyone know when we will be getting our stuff? I stopped wondering.
I was reader only on this forum since Dec 2012 but after reading this topic I registered to post a comment. First of all I passed Dec 2013 Level 1 exam using Elan guides as a supplement. I found their ultimate + package awesome (videos are awesome), Basit is good, Olinto is the Boss when presenting and explaining.Yes they have delays (they delayed review seminar but I still managed to view half of it - and it did help me during exam - I managed to withdraw from my memory exactly what Olinto explained and sure that I made correct answer).
Best thing that Olinto make in his videos - he explain things how to see the real meaning - how it works - not just - ‘remember formula’ - you understand this formula. Also he encourages you to study with all his tricks - you feel that you are not alone.
Basit provide you with tons of detailed explanation and information - you can feel his effort despite his calm voice.
Their study notes all have these little details on each page - when you ask yourself ‘why not this way? or how?’ you read an answer in small box. You can feel integrity in their materials despite some errors here and there (CFAI errata is bigger).
When you understand effort and integrity which they put in their materials you can wait for printed materials (most of materials are available online). I support them as a loyal customer and I hope that gossip about Willey buying them will not make them like other big companies without heart. If Olinto and Basit will elave Elan - my comment should be read with caution -
PS: yes level II printed materials are delayed - no questions here - this is not good - but I will stick with Elan despite this fact. I worried more about Willey aquasition and possibility instructors leaving company or working with different attitude
This is exactly why I am suspicious. After my previous comment it seems that a bunch of people are coming forward with quick email responses about Elan’s future, clarification on study content, and even compliments about an Elan employee’s soothing voice. Seemingly great customer service reports mixed in with other reports of absolutely garbage treatment. All suspicions of shilling aside, who’s to say I don’t receive garbage treatment like half the people in this thread are reporting?
As someone who is solely focused on passing the exam what matters most to me is receiving the study material I pay for, not comforting emails from the provider. Elan could have the best customer service and material in the world and it wouldn’t matter one bit if they don’t give us what we paid for on a timely basis. This is something that nobody is even debating because it is the truth.
To me, the decision to go with a different provider has been made clear. I was hesitant before because the Elan website looks like a classic internet scam website and this thread has certainly raised doubts.
This is true; however, all the materials are actually available online and have been since I purchased the package. I’m just frustrated not to have the hardcopies I paid extra for. I don’t like to study off a computer screen and don’t want to spend money printing pages when I already paid more money (including shipping) for the printed copies.
Today they postponed some items til Feb . I hope they dont act in the same manner with the mock exams .I love their material but their customer servic is not good .
This is exactly why I didn’t go with Elan - I can’t study nearly as well off a screen as I do reading hard copies. I figured that Elan’s material can’t be THAT much better than Schweser’s, or not enough to make up for that fact anyways.
I had the same suspicions honestly, and figured people were paid to review on this website! But i went ahead with the free trial and was so impressed with the quality of the videos that i returned my schweser materials and went with Elan instead. I am a visual learner so I would really struggle to make it through notes, and the shweser videos don’t have great reviews here.
You can also tell from my profile that i was around this board before Elan existed, so i’m definitely not connected to them.
So far so good, sign up for the trial, nothing to lose.
yeah the material is top-notch, and the delivery issues are temporary. my one actual gripe is that practice questions aren’t sent with the printed material, and the website doesn’t have a Q-bank-like portal that makes them easier to go through. you’re pretty much left to use PDFs.
