There's an expectation that as the CISSP is generally well received and respected (and, yes, the exam is expensive) that ISC2 should be some shining beacon of professionalism and efficiency. However, like most organisations, the less you have to deal with them the better! Although, I don't think they are any worse than any others I have to deal with regularly.
The main issue at the moment is the pretty messy "digital transformation" all of their systems have recently been through. This has resulted in functionality that was previously working just fine although looking very dated, now looks very fancy but some elements just don't work properly (e.g. the various and numerous Member and CPE Portal issues you can read about on here).
The endorsement system was taken offline for 2 weeks during an upgrade a while ago which resulted in the queue which used to run at around 4 weeks ballooning up to nearly 9 weeks. They had worked to get this down but something has caused this to go up again. They like to mention higher than normal/expected volumes, but I noticed the endorsement system was suspended for new applications for a day a couple of weeks or so ago, so I suspect that has something to do with it as well.
All of this, combined with the confusion caused by the recent change in the annual maintenance fees policy (both the increase and the move from paying in arrears to paying upfront), means that the members are having to contact member support more often leading to the delays in getting a response from them. It seems they do respond to the emails and voicemails but it takes 2, 3 or even 4 weeks!
I know it's frustrating waiting for the endorsement to come through. I've been through this 3 times already and currently have 2 more applications in the queue. You spend a lot of time, effort and money to study for and pass these exams so you want to see a return on that investment, but now you have to sit and twiddle your thumbs waiting and waiting and waiting with no feedback until one day you receive an email saying congratulations! I wish they would implement a system where you could see the progress of your application.
