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Seeking advice on how to divide responsibilities between Customer Service Reps in the office
We are in the process of trying to re-define which CSR's do which tasks in the office. Do most agencies split up tasks based on alphabet (one CSR takes clients A-F, next one takes G-M, etc)? What is the best way to split up work so the work is divided as evenly as possible? I am curious to see how other agencies handle this. Currently we have 3 CSR's. They work with just our P&C business and it is roughly a 50% Personal 50% Commercial split. Is it easier to just say whooever answers the phone helps that client? Any advice is appreciated.

I don't think there is a standard answer for this in a small agency. I have always seen commercial lines separate from personal lines. Very few CSR's with the ability to handle commercial lines want to handle personal lines.

Do they all have the same ability? Do they all get the same pay? Usually a Pers Lines CSR with a couple years experience is going to be on the low end of the pay scale and not able to handle commercial lines. Maybe certificates and some billing questions.

Interested in seeing other opinions . . .

One of our offices is similar in size and personnel. We have one CSR who handles only PL, one CSR who handles the larger CL accounts, and the 3rd CSR handles some of the PL book as well as some of the smaller CL accounts. The CL CSR is the highest paid of the 3, while the other two are in the saem range. Of course tenure has something to do with it too. Like the other post said, most people at better at either PL or CL. Obviously the PL and small CL accounts are more transactional, while the larger CL accounts will require more technical skill/knowledge. I have never been a fan of the alpha-split method. You need to consider relationships, the account and CSR personalities, the expertise that may be needed for the various accounts, etc. You could start with an Alpha-split, but should be ready to make a lot of exceptions. Be sure thier workloads are fairly distributed to avoid unhappy CSRs. Take a look at them at least once a year to see if they need to be rebalanced.
Something else that is very important for long term success and growth is to encourage (and pay for) their continued education. And I don't mean just taking CE classes to fulfill their license requirements, but have them take meaningful classes or self-study that will lead to a designation and give them some useful knowledge.

While I hate to revive an old thread, I've been thinking on this matter quite a bit recently. We have a small Personal Lines staff of three and a half (one staff is half PL and half auto) that has an odd-ish makeup. One of our staff handles all renewals, two others do new quotes as well as endorsements on an 'alpha split' and the 'half' staff handles new condo and tenants quotes (well, that's the plan).

The challenge I have is one of the quoting staff, who has been with the organization for a very long time, is super attached to this alpha split. Even though no CSR is on commission or actually owns a book, she has refused to work on items that aren't in 'her book'. When talking about helping each other, everything comes back to 'her book'. I'm SUPER frustrated with this and have a mind to stop dividing work on an alpha split which leaves a big old HOW. If it were renewals, I could easily split each month up so everything is fair but on quotes? Does anyone do some kind of central pending of quotes or endorsement requests?

Give the most important work to your most responsible CSR's, and reward them for exceptional customer service. The rest will follow.

This shouldn't be rocket science.

For work, just put it into a pile and divide it by the number of CSRs.

For duties, draw straws. Let's bring back the 60's and jettison the enormous amount of time wasted by catering to individual egos.

If the CSRs cannot or will not do their assigned work, there are others out there who will.