Auto Club of Southern California Reviews

Cons

Like any other corporation. List of things to gripe about goes on and on, but it's pointless to gripe. Just vote with your feet.

Cons

Can be extremely stressful at times

Cons

Work on Saturdays, huge hustle to make unrealistic sales goals, management usually doesn’t help you out too much with leads, a lot of cold calling and competition between agents

Cons

Poor communication from upper management.

Cons

18 month commitment before branching out into other departments.

Cons

Little time off , to much pressure with sales

Cons

Randomized thoughts below.

This is the first private, non-profit company I've ever worked for and it's been quite the culture shock for someone who's has spent the majority of their career in and around Fortune 500s. Right off the bat I feel like some people here are dragging their feet vs the taking the initiative and getting things done. Why take risks when you don't have shareholders or the street to appease? Safe and steady seems to be the mantra here, ingrained for over a hundred years. Despite that, jobs seem to be safe here.

Generally speaking, this is simply the most bureaucratic work environment I've ever experienced in my career. Every aspect of your existence requires manager approval. Things such as submitting a help desk ticket, time card approvals (for salaried positions), and hourly task management. This creates so much overhead that could be better spent on project work.

Everything is sooooo slowwwwww to get done, it's just frustrating. I don't know how anything gets done around here. On the other hand, this is a huge opportunity for someone with the right motivation to shine, and I am indeed motivated. I will post an update down the road, I'd like to see how things play out myself.

In my opinion, there's a gargantuan amount of contractor sourcing going on here, and I used to work in the tech industry. I can't even begin to imagine how much knowledge has been lost simply from the churn, one has to wonder why that is the case here.

There is a ham-fisted approach to corporate management policies, and the inability/unwillingness to adapt to employees across all BUs (and levels) is a sign of laziness amd/or incompetence from the higher ups.

This is the first company that I or my consultant colleagues have been in that required business casual for all of IT and did not have casual Fridays at all. Business casual was recently implemented and announced on the intranet like it was the second coming of Christ. Lol.

Put in a garage. Summers are hot as hell in OC and walking to your car at Ikea sucks. Why the hell do I feel like I'm waking through a disneyland parking lot?!

Put in a gym. There's so many people walking around the atrium that we're bumping into each other. The building is large enough already.

Put in a rec room. All work and no time to briefly disconnect and/or get in some nap/quiet time contributes to stress buildup. Make your "wellness" program worth something more than 50% fitbits that don't help much anyways.

Cons

back stabbing other employees, playing politics, and no loyalty.

Management does not care about you.

If you are a top salesman, they still don't care. They just want you to keep producing as much as you can. We pay you, so we own you kind of mentality.

Cons

Not enough hours available to work

Cons

Toxic culture on a good day.

Long hours, not a typical 40hr week. Not even close. Usually 55-60hrs/wk average. If you have a family, say goodbye. Saw new agents last a month or two due to long hours before quitting. Training does nothing to prepare you for what is to come. Was on a sales team of revolving new agents washing out which put burden of team goal on remaining agents and sales manager. This will be bad if you are on a team like this, YOU will not be given fair opportunities for sales due to the team performance, not your own. You get 3 hours of insurance inbound calls and 1 hour membership if you are not under performing, that is the average. On a bad team, they will take hours away from whole team despite your compensation and performance being individual. That makes sense right? The team and individuals are already struggling to make sales, so let’s LIMIT THEIR OPPORTUNITIES. Upper MGMT would tell us to make cold calls, a punishment since we were not good enough to close the inbounds. They want to teach you a lesson to A – always, B-be, C-closing. GOODS LEADS ARE FOR CLOSERS ONLY. COFFEE IS FOR CLOSERS ONLY. Okay, only joking about the coffee. But the leads are for real. Pray you get on a good team with a good manager. Try making a decent income off cold calls and 1-2 hours of on inbound calls. Very difficult. Warm up your dialing finger. You will answer roughly 15-30 calls an hour on a busy day, 75% of those won’t be a sale. You are not only an agent, you are an operator. It will be someone who wants to complain or needs service. Those people just hit “0” on their phone. “0” at AAA goes to sales…because sales always answers. AAA member call in to make a change to their address and have been on hold for 15 mins? They hit “0” and greet you will screams of dissatisfaction! Don’t worry, just cross sell them into insurance? That is what MGMT expects. Also be careful, all calls are recorded, you can’t just disconnect or transfer to someone else. The phone systems know all! People walked out (Fired) on daily basis for stuff like this. On a slow day you will get 2-5 calls an hour, all of these will not be for sales, they will be for service.
Speaking of service, since the service dept. under performs with referring cross sell opportunities, you as a SALES AGENT, get to perform service duty one day a week and try to sell people who only want service! So theoretically, you work 8hrs/day. 4 of those will be inbound sales calls(Supposedly…). The remaining 4 hours are intended for follow up calls on previous days quotes or to do paper work. BUT they will take those 4 hours and make you be on the phone doing service. 8hrs a day on the phone once a week. You are already swamped with policy paperwork(Again, roughly 40 pages a policy and roughly 45-50 policies a month) Not to mention you will usually need signed paperwork back from the insured or some sort of proof for a discount. If you cannot complete due to improper documentation or missing signatures, you must refer for cancellation. No commission. You can roll the dice and submit, but there are 5 sets of eyes that will be checking for this stuff after you. If you get caught, bye bye bonus. Do it a few times? Hit the door, you’re fired.
Mandatory 1 Saturday a month, but if you want to hit your goals you will be there at least one other Saturday. IF you don't work the second Saturday you will be talked to by MGMT as to why you didn’t want to volunteer to come to work. God help you if you don't make your goal and only worked 1 weekend. So 2 six day work weeks a month...sometimes more if you are not pacing for goal...MGMT will expect you to work weekends and long hours. Sundays are not out of the question either. Many times worked 13 days in a row, 10 to 12 HR days. Reminded MGMT 14 days in a row in against law. They don't like that. Sweat shop sales. Manager will bully you to stay until you make a sale. You will be expected to stay late if you have not made a sale. Oh, what’s that? You made a sale? Great! Your manager will now expect two sales before you can leave. Shifts start from 8:30A and 9:30A are typical, you will work until atleast 7P or 9P at night, even though you should be gone by 5P-6P. Again if you didn't stay late and you did not hit goals...you were talked to by MGMT. Consistently reminded you are replaceable. Once told, 3000 people a week apply for my job, so my numbers better be up to par. Only 3 sick days a year. NO paid time off except those sick days. You will be asked to work ALL holidays except Christmas. You will work until 9PM Christmas Eve. You will work NYE and NY day. You are required to hit LOTS of different metrics which will reduce your income significantly if you do not hit a majority of them. Again, 6 figure potential, but you better be one heck of a sales person, not to mention keeping your policies on the books.
Policy cancels within first term? Which is 1 year. Say goodbye to your commission. It is charged back to you Pro Rata. This also dings your "Survival" rate which will lower your unit pay...double whammy. Business is graded A,B,C depending on varying factors of risk and how much premium it will probably produce for company.... About half are out of your control, including the insured's driving history and years they have been a member of AAA. So basically out of your hands for compensation, luck of the draw. Write a C policy? Awesome, you probably just made $25-$50…lame. Write A business? $200-$300 per policy. Sounds easy right? Wrong. You will be expected to produce roughly 25 auto and 20 home policies a month. Your auto to home ratio is expected to be 75%, if not, talked to by MGMT and your unit rate is degraded and phone hours taken away for next 2-4 weeks. Not to mention we are priced HIGH compared to others in market. You have to sell on quality, which come one now, doesn’t really exist.
 You will also be rated on your accuracy, aka how well you underwrote(adhere to company guidelines) the policy initially, hopefully it is up to snuff and PERFECT otherwise kiss your six figure potential good bye. Misspell a name? Put in an incorrect date? Put an occurrence date instead of a conviction date for a ticket? Bye bye bye extra $8-10K a quarter. That is just scratching the surface of minor errors. If the price changes? Forget it, your accuracy is done, again, good bye Extra $30-$50K/YR. Don't worry, that accuracy will also go against your unit rate...making you even less money. Compensation is so complex most people don't understand it. It is constantly changing as well. Your typical insurance application you submit to underwriting is 40pgs long. 40! And you have to submit it as paper. You paper clip it and put it in a bin that is then transported by cart across the building for underwriters to audit. You will learn to hate underwriters. The audit underwriting is subjective. Some auditors go by the book, while others will let things slide. Makes all the difference in you accuracy bonus. That bonus is 73% of your auto commission. Don’t have that, you lose that six figure potential.
 Make sure you refer enough business to your Life Insurance equivalents, if you don't your unit rate will be lowered. Oh, and don't forget credit cards! You will be required a minimum number of credit cards you will need a member to at least apply for. Doesn't sound bad until you hand it over to a B of A rep to do the app with the member since you are not allowed legally to do the credit app. and the rep disconnects the line or are so bad that the member gets fed up and hangs up on them. Let's see... whats next. Oh yes, favoritism. Managers will pump leads to higher performing agents because of their higher likelihood to close the deal. Or is it because they get all the leads that they are able to close so much? Hmmm...maybe we should look at closing ratio a little closer. Top performing sales agents are usually promoted to sales manager. Most of these agents are good at selling…not managing. Ever seen a manager at a company awards ceremony get drunk and upper cut an agent? You will if you work for The Auto Club of SoCal! Ever work for a company whose employees tear apart a major prestigious hotel conference hall during the company’s award ceremony and be told by said prestigious hotel that the company is no longer welcome back? TR-IP-LE A! Good luck to those applying, don’t drink the Kool Aide, most people don’t last, and those that do are usually up to something shady. Manipulation or fraud. Next Wells Fargo.