Position was stressful, not at all like it was advertised and didn't pay well. - Office Manager State Farm Employee Review

I was hired in an office manager capacity. The job posting indicated that I would be responsible for servicing existing policies- making changes, sending verification of insurance, helping people understand their policies. During the interview the agent indicated that I would be primarily responsible for managing the existing book of business and sales would be 'incidental'. I sat with the former office manager for a day to see what the job would be like- she worked "beginning of day" activities like sending out payment reminders, emailing coverage selection/rejection forms, updating addresses. She answered the phone to answer questions and scanned and uploaded forms and she made it look like a very manageable job so I accepted the position. The first week was watching State Farm training videos on how to use their software, their underwriting guidelines, and a few cheesy sales simulations videos. The training videos do not really teach you anything useful about how to use their software and they don't have any simulations where you practice using the software so if you're a person who learns by doing rather than watching you're kind of out of luck. The rest of my first month I didn't yet have my property and casualty license for my current state (was waiting for it to transfer from out of state) so I was extremely limited on what I could do for customers. You can't even make an address change without your license so you're pretty much limited to taking payments and requesting forms. When my license finally transferred up a month in-- it was like my job responsibilities DOUBLED overnight. All of a sudden I was expected to do all of the customer service work that goes into a book of business AND work 20 prospects a day to try to sell insurance. I have no prior sales experience and was given no training on outbound calling. I felt like I was thrown to the wolves. I barely knew how to use their quoting software, I wasn't super knowledgeable about their products, and here I was expected to pick up the phone and sell State Farm. It wasn't at ALL the way the job was described to me but I was determined to be good at it. Day after day I worked hard in the face of TREMENDOUS amounts of rejection and hostility: 1. "Good afternoon! My name is ___ with State Farm Agent __--" *click* 2. "Good afternoon! My name is ___ with St--" "WHY ARE YOU CALLING ME? I AM AT WORK!" *click** 3. "Good afternoon! My name is ___ with State--" "Oh, no habla ingles." 4. *do do do* We're sorry, but the number you have dialed is no longer in service. 5. "Good afternoon! My name is ___ with State Farm Agent ____'s office. Can I provide an auto insurance quote to see if State Farm can earn your business?" "Sure" *15 minutes later* "Oh, sorry, Geico is cheaper. I'll just stay where I am, no thank you." I learned later that in my town, there is a hierarchy where the bigger agents are able to purchase the best leads and my office as a smaller agency got the "leftover" leads. We got the disconnected numbers, the wrong numbers, the people who don't speak english, and the customers who have been with USAA/Geico/American Family longer than I've been alive who there's no chance they're switching companies because I called them at 2 PM on a Wednesday. The most frustrating part to me was sometimes I would FINALLY write a policy and then State Farm underwriting would come back and say "You didn't enter in this information right on the quote and now we're increasing the price you agreed on with the customer." or "After underwriting review, we'll be cancelling this business that you JUST WROTE." Like I said, the training was very limited so I didn't KNOW that I was doing it wrong. The frustrating thing was many days my agent would leave at 2 PM and sometimes I would be there alone so there was NO ONE to ask for help to make sure I was writing business correctly. Their Agency Business Website has no real resources to help you with quoting and the real kicker to me was if you call State Farm Auto Customer Service, THEY CAN'T HELP YOU. They have NO idea how to use the NECHO software for agents. If you don't know how to do something, they'll just refer you back to your absentee agent. I felt as though I got no support to do my job. Keep in mind that the sales aspect was on top of being expected to keep up with the customer service. At any given time, the phone is ringing, faxes are coming in from mortgage companies wanting verification of homeowners insurance, there's 10 emails in your inbox from State Farm that need to be answered and everyone wants everything done RIGHT NOW. There were a lot of days where I couldn't get all the customer service work and the sales work done in 8 hours so I would skip my lunch and I would stay late for NO extra pay because I was "managerial" and exempt from overtime. Then if there was an event on the weekend where they needed us at a State Farm tent I was expected to go work that as well, also for no additional pay. Even in the face of these challenges, I still wrote about $10k in property and casualty premium a month but even when I worked myself to death to get that $10k in premium it was NEVER good enough for my agent. He wanted us to push overpriced life insurance policies and State Farm Bank products. We are in a lower income area where most people have a hard time paying their state minimum auto liability on time and I work hard just to sell those products. Trying to convince a lower income person who likely smokes and has health problems to spend $50-$60/mo on a life insurance policy when they can't pay their existing bills is impossible. It wasn't for lack of trying that I didn't sell, it was just the product was very expensive and it's not legally mandated like auto insurance so it was extremely difficult. I never got a pat on the back, I never got a "good job" or "thank you for working hard to keep my agency functioning". My agent was always very accusatory- why didn't you sell more premium? why didn't you sell more life insurance? When I was NEVER hired to be a sales person. I wouldn't have taken the job if that had been made clear to me from the beginning. The real kicker for me was being expected to sell health insurance and retirement savings accounts to customers. State Farm is the LARGEST provider of insurance and financial services yet their agent staff members who sell their products have no opportunity to buy health insurance or invest in a 401k. You have to convince other people of the value of these products while you yourself have to be content with not having health insurance and your employer not helping save for retirement. I just got sick of putting so much of myself into a company that invested so little back in me. I didn't see a future as a State Farm agent which is pretty much the only opportunity available to you to move up from an Office Manager and so I left.