More CSR stories from the company whose name I dare not speak...

According to Brian, he "can't wait" to hear more CSR stories. (Well, in the past tense...so I guess it would be "couldn't wait".) So I guess I'll just have to share a little bit more.

First off, I just want to say that life as a CSR (that's "customer service representative" in real life) wasn't all bad. For me, part of why I liked that kind of work was because of the industry itself.

That's right, folks - I'm an insurance geek.

I started out working as a secretary in a claims office, and the stories alone were worth hearing. Some were hilarious, but some were also sad, and some were just plain weird.

I think the funniest thing about the job was when you caught people in the middle of outlandish theories about why they couldn't be at fault. One gentleman (whose daughter rear-ended a school bus, a feat in itself) theorized that the accident couldn't be his daughter's fault. WHY? Because the school bus was out of its district.

The adjuster related the story to us later. He said when the insured gave him this piece of information, he replied with, "So that means if my child is on a school bus on the way to a field trip, something happens and the child is hurt or killed, my wife and I aren't entiled to any damages?"

The backpedaling rivaled anything Floyd Landis could do, y'all.

Anyway, this job really fascinated me, and I tried to get into the insurance world any way I could.

Now let me tell you a little bit about customer service training at the nameless lizard company.

First of all, we had to have a week-long course to prepare ourselves for the insurance license test. Taking the test put the fear of God in most everyone, but our training class passed 100%.

After that, we were placed in another training class...we were taught the billing system first, and then put out on the floor to handle billing.

Once we went through that first step, we went back into the classroom for more training on advanced skills (adding/replacing/deleting vehicles, adding drivers, deleting drivers, changing coverage...the list goes on.)

We came out of the final stretch of the class "ready" for the challenge.

I'm just going to say one thing right here...just because you pass the class doesn't mean you are fully prepared for the weirdness that you'll encounter on the phones. Among a few things I encountered:

1. Multiple marriage proposals - they were mostly from South Dakota - they must be REAL hard up for women over there. I guess I sound better than I look.

2. Brushes with greatness - I once talked to a person who purchased a car at an auction that used to belong to one of the stars of "I Love Lucy".

3. General goofiness - OH...where do I begin?

* Of course, there were customers that EVERYONE in our call center knew about, and we all prayed that we would never get him/her. One particular woman was quite off in the head, and one of the things she would get upset about was that the payment envelope in the cancellation notice was pink. She felt this an attack upon her character.

She also tried to pull swifties on her policy like cover up who was driving her car and how much. (This affects your rates, BTW, and that's why an agent will ask you those kind of questions.) As my family would say, "She'd raise hell and put a chunk under it" and ask to speak to supervisors, managers, the president of the company, etc. We warned new trainees out on the floor about this person, she was that bad.

* I ran into the same problems as before re: catching people in lies/outrageous reasons/unfounded hissy fits.

I think my favorite one was this: A woman called in asking why her rates were so high. Now, as an insurance CSR, my job involved going through the policy with the customer and finding ways we can lower the rate. Lower rate = happy customer = Sudiegirl doesn't have to pack up her stuff from her desk today.

So anyway, I'm trying to soothe the customer, go over her policy and ask questions about changes to the policy. We go over whether she lives in a different place, her drive to and from work, her annual mileage, etc. Another thing we have to cover is prior accidents, convictions, or tickets.

This was where it got interesting.

I went to her claims and driving record, my eyes got huge, and then I asked her this question:

"Ma'am, do you remember an incident from two years ago when you HIT A PEDESTRIAN???"

The other end of the line was silent for a couple seconds, then..."Oh YEAH! I forgot about that. That lady came out of nowhere!"

I had to compose myself for a minute because I was convulsing with silent laughter. (Thank Big Ernie for mute buttons.)

Once I calmed down, I said, "Yes, ma'am, it looks like we've found the reason for the rate increase." I explained it, she understood, and then we tried to find out if any defensive driving discounts applied to her.

So you see, if we don't get the whole story, we miss out on something that is so bizarre that it's worth the stress of the job.

But all in all, I am thankful for the experience. After all, if I hadn't worked for the nameless lizard, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to move to the DC area and expand my horizons.

I also would be lacking in South Dakota marriage proposals.

Sudiegirl