Pros
The AAA brand is well known no matter who you talk to. It looks good on the resume for your next job and they are willing to train you on the basics of insurance so you can pursue a job with a more stable company. Average benefits package though average or below average for a typical call center. They do occasionally do fun things like they recently had a carnival at the center. This was conveniently timed to occur the same week as the employee satisfaction survey. Dual monitors are standard in customer service, but you'll need them when the company requires you to use 19 different systems with 19 different passwords at any given moment. Supervisors are usually so overworked that they typically leave you alone unless they want to work you out of the system. If you mind your manners and don't make waves they probably will never even talk to you. This is not a company that micro-manages, it's a company that barely manages which is great if you hate micromanagement.
Cons
Hours of operation for customer service are 7 days week ranging anywhere from 7 am to 11 pm Monday - Friday and 9-9 on Saturday and Sunday. Shift bids seem to happen every 3-6 months and the criteria used to determine who gets what is often not announced until right before the bid so you have no way to improve areas of your performance until it's too late and you find yourself working a closing shift when you used to work an early morning shift. Benefits do not begin until 3 months into employment so make sure you have something else in place before accepting a job. The health insurance is through United Health Care and the company only offers 10% or 20% deductible plans. The premiums for a family are outrageous. As a standard call center do not plan on two days off in a row. You do have paid holidays but trying to get a holiday off is near impossible. You do get nice paid time off, but trying to get a day approved in advance is like jumping through hoops and requires approval in 3 different systems. At least you will get double time and half for that holiday you are forced to work. The call center has been understaffed for quite some time. Mandatory overtime has been the normal forever and is often applied to your schedule no notice. You will be reprimanded for missing mandatory overtime. The company avoids adequate hiring and waits until its too late because they don't want to always be hiring as they will appear to the community to be just another revolving door call center. Because of the high employee turnover and mandatory overtime your lunch can be changed in the middle of the day down from a scheduled 45-60 minutes to 30 minutes and you won't notice until you return from lunch and your supervisor points out that you were tardy. Previous lunch plans are not taken into account. Training as a new rep was awful and did not even prepare us for basic calls. When being trained to take calls for new policy types, training is often interrupted and postponed or cancelled so the trainees can get on the phones. Pay is only reviewed once per year and changed in February or March so if you start around that time, you could be without a raise for a long time. The pay starts at $11 a hour and the average increase seems to range from 0-1%. Pay increases are not reviewed midyear even if you start working on extra system platforms or handling more than one type of policy. The customer service department has no room for growth. You start as a level 1, and move to a level 2 only when a supervisor feels you are ready and if you are able to get an insurance license. From a level 2 you have the chance to become a Team Lead if you are favored by the right people but there is not a pay difference for the role. Once you are a level 2 your only other option to advance is to go to sales, claims or underwriting but most people who apply for underwriting or claims from customer service are rejected in favor of external applicants. The computer systems are ancient. The primary policy systems look like old green and black screen computers. There are frequent system problems. Not only the systems used to help customers, but also company systems like time card systems and time off systems. As a seasoned customer service veteran, I'm used to upset customers, but not used to a company that creates so many of their own problems due to mismanagement and system issues. Billing is the number one reason people call and the systems are the number one cause of billing problems. Most employees refuse to insure their own insurance with AAA after experiencing outrageous rate increases or one of the countless system errors that have left customers uninsured or double billed. Supervisors are few and far between and often have no idea what's going on and don't have time to talk to you or answer questions when you need help. They depend on Team Leads to do everything and most of those people are the same rank as everyone else so sometimes there's no point in asking for help. I keep hearing people say it's going to get better, but my experience tells me it will only get worse, just like it has over the past 2 years.