Are agents just not training new team members anymore? I work in SFPP and the number of calls we’ve gotten from people whose aliases start with VAD and VAE who don’t have the slightest clue how to do their jobs have increased exponentially.
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Agent here. For internal team members to think that we train on sfpp is a joke. Agents hire producers to produce not try to figure out a bill that only one dept in the entire world can figure out! Even our customers cannot figure out what we send them. Trust me we feel the same way when we get a VAD or VAE in sfpp. It is common for an agent to lose business because of our billing errors and complete lack of understanding how our policyholder interprets a bill. So, sorry we are wasting your time as you sit home on your a-s complaining about the people that are facing the customer daily literally. Come spend a day with a team member that handles EVERY aspect of what our company sells and represents. I have had many conversations with new internal team members in sfpp, VAA and VAEs all with one goal, to help. 99% of them are wonderful I guess we found the 1% on this thread. Reminder, agents run small businesses I run a very successful one, and I do what I want to do as long as I am compliant and do what the Farm asks me to do
So Funny…a complaint from a sfpp rep, the irony.
Sure-agency is our weak link. Even though 99% of the money comes in through that channel, and agents are all the customer sees, and even Warren Buffet concedes that he can’t beat State Farm’s agency system. But Skippy the two year WFH genius knows better🙄
Stop with the holier than thou attitude. Underwriters have to know about one product line. And they try to pass off a question to service, and Vice versa. Agent office are expected to know about every product line , uw and servicing for the 100 different prod we sell and service. If you call uw you get different answers , answers that don’t make sense. Agency and uw both have “six digit aliases”as employees , trying to do their best. I assure you no one wants to call uw if they didn’t have to, to wait on hold..most of the time it because the customer is complaining about the time service of pol transactions. 45-60 days to process a change. If it is complicated, they have been known to just delete the PT
Agency is our weak link and unfortunately we need them to keep new business coming in. 90% of the staff are salesmen in over their head. Underwriting is a massive embarrassing weight around them all, a department shackled by disgustingly bad technology, the old and the new, and a work process that should be a case study at some university its like a work process Rube Goldberg machine.
Staff get crash courses in extremely complicated products, and then online resources that cant cover everything for our insane processes, and the processes takes insanely long. This makes every mistake a big issue. This also makes them look far worse than they really are. Also plenty of cases of a hire out of desperation turning out poorly, wrecking lots of things, then leaving, often leaving remaining staff unaware of what they ruined.
I often wonder how a 3 way call between a new hire staff, new underwriting hire, and new claim handler, would go. I would pay good money to be a fly on the wall for that. I know it happens.
But yeah often agencies are far worse with training and much more lax with hiring. They USUALLY have one old school staff member who keeps the ship from sinking.
@irxg - absolutely. We have to use a lot of different systems as well. Take notes. Bookmark links. That’s what I do. Don’t use the billing department as the “job training helpdesk.” It may improve hold times.
// They’re going to force us fire underwriters to handle all 50 states soon.//
You aren't already? My segment has been doing all 50 via rotation for years. It's not great.
That said, I try to keep an understanding for ATM. With the products I worked, you might only do a few a year, and our resources are sometimes intentionally vague. But it was hard to keep my patience when I spent time handholding on basic insurance concepts like the difference between replacement cost and actual cash value.
That tells me that there's not a culture of learning in some offices, just butts in seats.
Need to offshore all of ET. Hard to win races with anchor around your neck.
Systems and process stink. CRM and policies too. Thanks Execs $$$
I’m sick and tired of hearing agents and staff have to know everything. Listen, you filled out a resume. Applied. Got accepted. And come into work. You have all the resources you need. If I direct you to the guidelines or Fire answers and you complain how hard it is to navigate…you’re just lazy and incompetent. They’re going to force us fire underwriters to handle all 50 states soon. Do you think we know everything? HE-L NO. We use the resources same as you guys. So whoever keeps saying how hard it is, realize you have EVERY SINGLE RESOURCE UNDER THE SUN. Ranging from contact centers, trainers, ASR, and ABS. Brokers and other carriers have none of that. Be aware that the job is hard but they give everyone the tools needed to do the bare minimum.
It’s very difficult to do, given that we are somehow expected to know every system, every rule, and every procedure for every department in the enterprise.
@oru-the legend in his own mind. He invented agency and won 3 Nobel peace prizes and once scored 500 points in the ncaa championship game.
Dead weight here, I have the right to run my show any legal and compliant way I wish. I clear close to $400 k just coasting, on the 97. So how about you just fuuukk right off and mind your own.
Tenured SF Agent here, most of the agents have no clue what they are doing and definitely do not train their new team members. It's why most have such high turnover and never grow their book of business. Just milking SF for all they are worth. Most just used SF to create some cash flow to start other businesses, that are more profitable, or easier to run. For the decent agent's, we train our staff, are in our offices and make them come to us before calling U/W , SFPP or Claims. ECRM sucks.... Around 20% of the agents account for over 80% of all the growth at SF and it has always been that way. We wish they would fire or run off all the dead weight and either give the good agent's their book of business or find someone that wants to work.