Pros
The actual building is quite nice. There is a nice break room with a lot of seating, televisions and computers. Everything is still in fairly good condition as it's a new building. They do seem to be more understanding about "weather related" absences compared to other typical call centers-not sure if that will continue to be the case. They were moving to less "did you do these 50 different things on the call, exactly this way" to "did you actually service the customer"-something that is, in my mind, a very progressive change.
Cons
Let me start by stating that I could go on and on about what I disliked about CSAA NCNU. I will try to go over the highlights, instead. 1. The pay/benefits-less compared to other insurance call centers in the area. Basically, they pay rates that are comparable to AT&T or Sprint, not The Hartford or Farmers. The benefits are relatively expensive. They have the worst PTO accrual method that I've ever experienced. Basically, you earn 10 hours a month, but you can't use the time until the following month and, secondly, they don't have any sort of "PTO bank" that is granted at the beginning of the year. 2. The coworkers-I felt that there were a lot of incompetent/unhelpful people at CSAA. I expect that it's a natural consequence of paying below average wages. I know that only a handful of the people I started with had any insurance experience. The training program is not the best-a lot of the modules didn't function properly or were outdated. While in training, they had us taking phone calls when we didn't even know how to process most common endorsements or how to handle billing. The attitude seemed to be: "The members are really patient-they won't mind waiting". I know that I would be concerned if I called my insurance company to do something routine like adding a vehicle and was placed on hold for the rep to do so. We were basically left to our own devices after "nesting" since the "coaches" had to help the following class. Very few of the supervisors had any insurance experience either, so they weren't able to provide any assistance. 3. Opportunity-I accepted the job at NCNU because of the "there will be so much opportunity, you can move up, getting in at the ground floor, etc.." hoopla that surrounded the opening of the center. However, when other co-workers and I attempted initially to actually apply for better positions, most of us were rejected because we hadn't been there for 6 months. This stipulation hadn't been mentioned by many of people/documents trumpeting the "great opportunities" . Of course, by the time the 6 months had passed, a lot of the better positions had already been filled. 4. The company-there seems to be some confusion in management as to what course CSAA needs to take. The plan is to contract with other AAA clubs for NCNU to provide outsourced services (apparently Southern California has done well with this), but I don't know if they are really prepared for this.
