Posted On: September 12, 2006, 8:35 pm CDT

Posted By: a Direct guy

Hi everyone, I am actually one of those direct CSR's everyone is talking about stealing their business, so let's get rid of some myths. First off we make less than $30k a year with no commission. We can get a pretty decent bonus (up to 16% of our salary) but it's based on company performance and not personal performance. The next thing is that the last thing we want to do is take a customer away from a drive rep. It actually hurts our numbers. The problem is we have to hit your customers over the head to get them to call you instead of us. The most common times are on the special lines policies. They just got a motorcycle so they call us because they always call us about their auto policy. I try to get them back to you. They say something like "I haven't talked to him since 5 years ago when he wrote the policy." or "He takes forever to return my calls." I offer them your number and they say "Can't you just do it? You guys handle everything else." So what happens then, my numbers get screwed up because I sold a policy that doesn't count and you guys lose business. I know everyone probably likes the fact that they don't have to service these policies much. Especially considering the lower commission, but that's where you losing your customers. Also Direct policies have more restrictions not less. I can't write policies for snowmobiles or named operators with sr22 filings, so I refer them to you. We can't write 1 ton vehicles any more than you can, so when they call us we transfer them to commercial. Last but not least, if anything I refer more business to Drive than I take away. Out of the 30 customers I talk to every day about 4 want to pay for their policy in cash. Those are those referral emails you guys receive. I give them your number and ask if I can send you their info. I haven't had to write a drive to direct policy in over a month.