Everyone in the local offices know it from the occassional chats and emails, and we all know it to be true. The Corporate Office in Jacksonville treats our customer service reps (the bulk of that office’s work force) as replaceable, and it's a problem for sales staff like me.
I don't like that every week I'm hearing new names from the customer service team. I cringe at that the fact that when I reconnect with prior employees of Brightway who got poached by other, SMALLER AND LESS PROMINENT companies, and I always here the same story: “I had to beg for a wage that was $14.00.” This is disgusting. $14.00 should not be the most you're willing to pay a service staff, not even close, these people should be able to work one job here, full time, and receive decent benefits, enough to raise a family, and save a little bit too. You can't have a future with $14.00 an hour. It’s not a matter of doing the right thing, it is downright economicalyl wasteful. We train our reps very well – Other firms get incredibly excited when they find out they have a former Brightway Emplyoee up for grabs because we are required to learn more carriers and guidelines than any other agency. Our staff have a unique understanding of hundreds of different companies. Yet after we throw all this time and money into training these people, we let them stall. We let them spin their wheels in life and refuse to grant them a path towards a middle class life, so we lose them, and our investment, and we start all over again. As of the 2017 Road Show we proudly touted a HALF A BILLION DOLLAR BOOK OF BUSINESS. Asssuming 10% Commission and 50% of those funds going to corporate, that’s $250 Million Dollars a year in revenue assuming no growth. YOU CAN AFFORD TO PAY A LIVING WAGE SO THAT WE STOP LOSING OUR EDUCATED AND WELL TRAINED STAFF!
The product of an insurance agency is customer service, and this problem affects it. Dramatically. Painfully. Customer Service staffed who are paid poorly don’t go out of their way to help people – and why should they, when their employers don’t? Our customers are frequently subjected to dealign with new unexperienced service staff because we keep losing good people instead of giving them a reason to stay.
This affects me personally, too. The more replacements seen going through service, the more I have service members sending irate customers down to me because they coulnd’t manage their requests. The most I get screaming customers cold transferred to my office with no warning.
This all ends up making it so that corporate continues to fail to properly service our customers, and due to this a ludicrous amount of service calls (which they’re supposed to handle) end up getting sent back to our office. I'm paying you 50% of my renewal commission to handle my renewals, I don't care if they're pissed off. If the customer is upset, connect them to a Team Lead (Manager at Service). That’s what managers do. Don't send it back to my office unless you're willing to give that commission for that policy back – I’m paying you to do this. That’s the deal.
Brightway's model of allowing the local owners full reign over their offices compensation, structure and servicing. It’s a mixed bag experiment in office logistics. You may find yourself in a well run office which an owner who cares enough to see you thrive with real benefits, a 401K with matching and a strong rate with a renewal commission. Or, you may find yourself with crappy or no health insurance, no retirement benefits, and no hope of seeing a middle class income. As I mentioned before – And I can’t stress enough -- many local offices do not give their sales teams renewal commissions. There is no point in doing this job if you don’t make residuals. I don't suggest you work for any of these people, you will find yourself stressed out, constantly searching for new sales to build your next paycheck. You will pull in 25-40K a year before tax and work 60 hours a week. There are much less stressful ways to make 35-40K a year than flipping insurance policies. What makes this worth it is the renewals. That’s the only thing that makes this worth it.
Employees at local branches have no recourse for actions taken by their agency owners. If you work at a local office, you are literally at the mercy of whatever the local owner says and corporate will not help you. Benefits dispute? Not their problem. Pay dispute? Not their problem. Boss is genuinely harassing staff and creating an unsafe work environment? Not their problem. No hotline, no emails, no promises of confidentiality. Been here 5+ years and I have no idea who to take my concerns to, so I've just kept them quiet. There must exist a way for local branches to not become lost in the system behind their AAOs.
Brightway Corporate needs to do a better job at being pro-active with their markets, as someone on the front line in sales I often feel that we're behind. I'll suddenly realize there's a new homeowner's product that's undercutting mine that's been on the market for six months and that no one in corporate knows... Which is pretty much in-excusable. If they're not doing market research and trying to find me new products, who is?
