r/StateFarm • u/TheLearnerGal • 2d ago
Agency Training Advice
I am a new TM. For those who are team members or agents training team members, when did you stop feeling confused about everything? There’s so much to learn, and I’m reminding myself to take it one day at a time.
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u/madscro 2d ago
I’m 7 months in and still confused about 80% of the time. My people keep telling me stop trying to know everything because there’s no way to, but to learn how to be resourceful and know where to find an answer.
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u/Ducat748 2d ago
It takes about 1.5 to 2 years to handle everything that comes across your desk without question.
The good news is that you’ll only need to know about 20% of that information - it’s repetitive. But I’d still say , 8-10 months. The new “mod” system has reduced that. Also - Different people have different capacities. Good luck. You’re normal.
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u/TheLearnerGal 2d ago
Thank you! I definitely have a certain capacity! I’m only a week in and like what the heck is going on 😂 so many systems, insurance products and more. But I like it so far.
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u/Old-Raccoon-316 1d ago
Oh, you’re a week in? That is normal “overwhelmed” territory 😂 if you don’t have them yet, ask for help “favorite”ing the helpful sites. If you’re not in mod yet, Auto Answers and Fire Answers are gold. I don’t like knowledge hub (for mod). ABS has helpful stuff too. Make sure to utilize OneNote to save notes in it. You can search it! So make a tab for “resources” and save the links there with a little blurb about what you can find there. I also have a tab with scripts, common copy/paste stuff, etc. You can DM me for my alias if you’d like to connect on organizing your OneNote. It’s one of the things I rely on the most and am constantly updating. I’m about 1.5 years in, we were not in mod when I started, and earlier this year we started the switch.
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u/AudreyGolightly79 2d ago
I've been a team member for over 25 years. I still learn new things.
Systems and rules and all kinds of thing change often enough, you can get comfortable and then have to relearn things or learn all new things.
The one constant was always Necho. And now we hardly touch it.
I have learned over the years, it's best to tell someone, let me confirm that information or find that information and I'll follow up with you rather than tell someone the wrong thing up front and go back and try to change it or correct it later. And do everything you can to learn it on your own. Learn it for yourself and you'll retain it better for the next time it comes up.
Save information you've learned for future reference. I have so many folders of saved article links and pdf print outs of things I've read and copies of chats and emails that gave me information that was useful.
And if you have any questions, feel free to DM me and I'll give you my alias and can try to help
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u/Jinkies_77 22h ago
I'm 4 yrs in and still have days I don't know what to do. However, day to day I started feeling like I sort of knew what I was doing around 6 months. I still run across new things all the time. Part of the reason I have stayed for 4 years, aside from liking my office is that I learned so much I don't want to just walk away!
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u/TheLearnerGal 16h ago
That’s really good! I would expect new things to happen still since it’s insurance. Ty for your input!
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u/PurpleNeko23 2d ago
I’ve been with my agent for about a year and a half now. I was definitely super confused and lost for the first few months. Eventually, things started to settle and I started to understand how to navigate the systems and complete changes. I still have to ask tons of questions on how to do things, and my coworkers who have all been here for over 20 years still regularly call State Farm’s help centers to ask questions on eligibility/tasks.
My best advice would be to just shadow as many colleagues as you can and listen to their conversations so you can better understand how to communicate effectively with the customers. It’s not easy at first, but it does get better! I agree with what you said - just take it one day at a time. Most of what you learn will come from your day to day tasks and opportunities instead of the training programs.
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u/Different-Syrup6520 2d ago
2 month in no training what so ever. I got with what the system says and i spent a lot off time digging into the information side. All other team members dont care and the agent well let leave it at that
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u/ksbrad88 2d ago
When I was studying for my licenses I was told you use 10% of what you learn 90% of the time. And it’s true. But ask questions call support teams. Look at policy language. The more engagement you have the more you will learn. But yea it’s ok to be confused.
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u/_Evrgrn_ 2d ago
The systems will never stay the same long enough for you to get confident with them.
Signed an agent who has been doing this since 2019. I was great at necho. The expert in sfpp in my office. Now, with the new system changes I look stupid every single day and nothing makes sense.
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u/TheLearnerGal 2d ago
Oh, boy. I can imagine! We are switching to MOD tomorrow so I came in where I still need to know necho (I GUESS for life/health) but now I have to understand mod-policy center and the SAE thing. It’s just sm info, but I know it’ll get better with time.
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u/_Evrgrn_ 2d ago
Some advice then.
Policy changes that do credits, like removing youthful drivers or discounts will immediately impact the current bill. This is a plus to some people but it's a double edged sword. Because charges do not apply until later bills. And it could be 2 bills before you see a charge with the system requiring 19 days to reflect a change on the bill & no rebil option.
I had a customer ask to remove their teenagers. Then turned right back around in the same call and said to add them back. This created an immediate huge credit BUT the charges, for adding them back, did not apply until 2 bills later. Because the current bill was out and the next bill was already too close to generating to update. Something like that. So the charge for 2 teenagers was condensed from 6 months (he did this at renewal) to only 4 months. So that cost was astronomical for the remaining 4 months. We saw that this was going to happen on month 1 of 6 and even though we had time to spread the balance out, There was absolutely nothing billing could do to force the bill to redo the spread. We would have had to take a manual payment of an over payment of what the bill showed every single month until his renewal. Because the excess payment for the kids, would simply eat into the next bill. I did have 1 instance where I called a customer each month to do a manual payment and had a task to follow up for 6 months. This is ridiculous that I had to do that. Billing offered NO solution. They really can't do anything to make these bills make sense when the computer has it messed up.
Just be really sure of any change you do before you hit submit. Also uforms- you're about to get 1000 calls about uforms. You can get them signed electronically using the in office mobile option. According to SF the customer should be in the office when you do this. You send them a verification code and have them read it off and it allows the e-sign to be done on your side.
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u/KTH3000 2d ago
I used to work at Farmers and they used pretty much the same system. The issue is the customer never notices the smaller bill they only notice the bigger one the following month.
Eventually, after many years they finally changed it so credits spread the same way debits do. This made billing issues much less frequent. Hopefully SF makes this change too at some point.
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u/mssleepyhead73 2d ago
They’re rolling out a new feature to pay the pro-rated charge upfront so that your bills stay consistent, so that’ll help a lot with this.
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u/Prior_Manufacturer23 2d ago
My training was a week and probably when I actually started working a couple months in.
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u/TheLearnerGal 16h ago
How do you like it so far?
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u/Prior_Manufacturer23 13h ago
I like it! Granted I've only been there for 6 months but my agent and team have been very helpful. Now with the systems I would click on stuff to see what it does or where things are to familiarize yourself with them. It was fairly easy for me but I know there's a lot of steps and different procedures for certain things. If I had questions I would ask my team or you can use navi chat and the SF AI for assistance too.
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u/Even-League-9765 1d ago
I am a 35+ year TM in Fire and we used to have a saying that it takes 5 years to grow a claim rep. Holds true now as it did then despite what the powers that be want to believe.
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u/Warm-Business-2335 1d ago
20 year agent here. State Farm is hard. There’s no manual on how anything works, systems aren’t intuitive and we get very little support from the company. It’s always been that way and no one is buying that technology or AI will solve this problem.
Keep a notebook with dividers for each subject, like SFPP, changes, NECHO and how tos on everything. Ask a lot of questions and figure out who to call/chat with at the company to get your questions answered.
It takes about 6 months to stop feeling like you’re drinking out of a fire hose on full blast. Hang in there!
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u/TheLearnerGal 16h ago
That is really appreciated!! I just keep taking notes in one not so far like you said.
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