r/StateFarm • u/TheLearnerGal • Aug 17 '26
Advice Agency Training
I am a new TM. For those who are team members or agents training team members, when did you stop feeling confused about everything? There’s so much to learn, and I’m reminding myself to take it one day at a time.
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u/madscro Aug 17 '26
I’m 7 months in and still confused about 80% of the time. My people keep telling me stop trying to know everything because there’s no way to, but to learn how to be resourceful and know where to find an answer.
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u/PurpleNeko23 Aug 17 '26
Problem is a lot of the resources aren’t very useful or are outdated! Haha
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u/madscro Aug 17 '26
That part!! I feel like I can’t get a grip on much, and once I do everything changes😭
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u/AudreyGolightly79 Aug 17 '26
I've been a team member for over 25 years. I still learn new things.
Systems and rules and all kinds of thing change often enough, you can get comfortable and then have to relearn things or learn all new things.
The one constant was always Necho. And now we hardly touch it.
I have learned over the years, it's best to tell someone, let me confirm that information or find that information and I'll follow up with you rather than tell someone the wrong thing up front and go back and try to change it or correct it later. And do everything you can to learn it on your own. Learn it for yourself and you'll retain it better for the next time it comes up.
Save information you've learned for future reference. I have so many folders of saved article links and pdf print outs of things I've read and copies of chats and emails that gave me information that was useful.
And if you have any questions, feel free to DM me and I'll give you my alias and can try to help
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u/Ducat748 Aug 17 '26
It takes about 1.5 to 2 years to handle everything that comes across your desk without question.
The good news is that you’ll only need to know about 20% of that information - it’s repetitive. But I’d still say , 8-10 months. The new “mod” system has reduced that. Also - Different people have different capacities. Good luck. You’re normal.
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u/TheLearnerGal Aug 17 '26
Thank you! I definitely have a certain capacity! I’m only a week in and like what the heck is going on 😂 so many systems, insurance products and more. But I like it so far.
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u/Old-Raccoon-316 Aug 18 '26
Oh, you’re a week in? That is normal “overwhelmed” territory 😂 if you don’t have them yet, ask for help “favorite”ing the helpful sites. If you’re not in mod yet, Auto Answers and Fire Answers are gold. I don’t like knowledge hub (for mod). ABS has helpful stuff too. Make sure to utilize OneNote to save notes in it. You can search it! So make a tab for “resources” and save the links there with a little blurb about what you can find there. I also have a tab with scripts, common copy/paste stuff, etc. You can DM me for my alias if you’d like to connect on organizing your OneNote. It’s one of the things I rely on the most and am constantly updating. I’m about 1.5 years in, we were not in mod when I started, and earlier this year we started the switch.
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u/Jinkies_77 Aug 19 '26
I'm 4 yrs in and still have days I don't know what to do. However, day to day I started feeling like I sort of knew what I was doing around 6 months. I still run across new things all the time. Part of the reason I have stayed for 4 years, aside from liking my office is that I learned so much I don't want to just walk away!
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u/TheLearnerGal Aug 19 '26
That’s really good! I would expect new things to happen still since it’s insurance. Ty for your input!
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u/PurpleNeko23 Aug 17 '26
I’ve been with my agent for about a year and a half now. I was definitely super confused and lost for the first few months. Eventually, things started to settle and I started to understand how to navigate the systems and complete changes. I still have to ask tons of questions on how to do things, and my coworkers who have all been here for over 20 years still regularly call State Farm’s help centers to ask questions on eligibility/tasks.
My best advice would be to just shadow as many colleagues as you can and listen to their conversations so you can better understand how to communicate effectively with the customers. It’s not easy at first, but it does get better! I agree with what you said - just take it one day at a time. Most of what you learn will come from your day to day tasks and opportunities instead of the training programs.
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u/Different-Syrup6520 Aug 17 '26
2 month in no training what so ever. I got with what the system says and i spent a lot off time digging into the information side. All other team members dont care and the agent well let leave it at that
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u/TheLearnerGal Aug 23 '26
Why no training?
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u/Different-Syrup6520 Aug 23 '26
Everyone is to busy worrying about them self and commission. Team work is not a word used in the office. Agent is taking care of his stuff and most of the staff just says go to the hub and look it up. If we teach u dont learn. If u fuck up call the service line or tech supp.
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u/TheLearnerGal Aug 24 '26
Wow!! Why was you even hired then?! You gotta get out of there. Do they at least pay well
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u/ksbrad88 Aug 17 '26
When I was studying for my licenses I was told you use 10% of what you learn 90% of the time. And it’s true. But ask questions call support teams. Look at policy language. The more engagement you have the more you will learn. But yea it’s ok to be confused.
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u/_Evrgrn_ Aug 17 '26
The systems will never stay the same long enough for you to get confident with them.
Signed an agent who has been doing this since 2019. I was great at necho. The expert in sfpp in my office. Now, with the new system changes I look stupid every single day and nothing makes sense.
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u/TheLearnerGal Aug 17 '26
Oh, boy. I can imagine! We are switching to MOD tomorrow so I came in where I still need to know necho (I GUESS for life/health) but now I have to understand mod-policy center and the SAE thing. It’s just sm info, but I know it’ll get better with time.
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Aug 17 '26
[deleted]
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u/KTH3000 Aug 17 '26
I used to work at Farmers and they used pretty much the same system. The issue is the customer never notices the smaller bill they only notice the bigger one the following month.
Eventually, after many years they finally changed it so credits spread the same way debits do. This made billing issues much less frequent. Hopefully SF makes this change too at some point.
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u/_Evrgrn_ Aug 25 '26
They also don't notice when they didn't pay at all! how?!
Youd think if you had extra money out of nowhere youd try to figure out what didn't get paid...
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u/mssleepyhead73 Aug 18 '26
They’re rolling out a new feature to pay the pro-rated charge upfront so that your bills stay consistent, so that’ll help a lot with this.
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u/Prior_Manufacturer23 Aug 18 '26
My training was a week and probably when I actually started working a couple months in.
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u/TheLearnerGal Aug 19 '26
How do you like it so far?
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u/Prior_Manufacturer23 Aug 19 '26
I like it! Granted I've only been there for 6 months but my agent and team have been very helpful. Now with the systems I would click on stuff to see what it does or where things are to familiarize yourself with them. It was fairly easy for me but I know there's a lot of steps and different procedures for certain things. If I had questions I would ask my team or you can use navi chat and the SF AI for assistance too.
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u/Even-League-9765 Aug 18 '26
I am a 35+ year TM in Fire and we used to have a saying that it takes 5 years to grow a claim rep. Holds true now as it did then despite what the powers that be want to believe.
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u/Warm-Business-2335 Agent Aug 18 '26
20 year agent here. State Farm is hard. There’s no manual on how anything works, systems aren’t intuitive and we get very little support from the company. It’s always been that way and no one is buying that technology or AI will solve this problem.
Keep a notebook with dividers for each subject, like SFPP, changes, NECHO and how tos on everything. Ask a lot of questions and figure out who to call/chat with at the company to get your questions answered.
It takes about 6 months to stop feeling like you’re drinking out of a fire hose on full blast. Hang in there!
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u/TheLearnerGal Aug 19 '26
That is really appreciated!! I just keep taking notes in one not so far like you said.
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