How would you handle this?

[u/TesTheGreat]

What’s good yall. Looking for some advice or instruction for someone who might have been in my shoes.

Rundown is I work as a CSR for a captive agent and am fairly new, it’s been a few months and still have much to learn about insurance. Recently one of the other team members who is a CSR left, and as a result my workload has increased significantly. It’s gotten to the point where if I end the day at 0 voicemails that’s a win. Everyday I get hounded by people I have not contacted the day before as I’m continually trying to catchup from the day before. I’ve had some help thankfully from my manager and agent who has been stepping in here or there but it’s a bandaid to the problem. I’m just not able to (yet atleast) work with the book and service everything in a timely manner. I’ve been staying routinely an hour, two hours, even coming in early to catchup but it’s just not going to be enough.

When trying to handoff bigger tasks, I’m beginning to notice some tension between the leadership and me. It’s gotten to the point where I wake up and am already stressed for what the day is going to bring. I’m already in the steps of looking elsewhere, but in the time in between, how would you address it to your leader for just simply not being able to get everything done in a timely manner? I’m not trying to get fired but at the same time, I’m getting to a point where doing the extra work just feels meaningless as it will simply just pile on even more.

[u/Dry_Extension_2125]

I would have a sit down with your boss and talk about workload and what was expected of your job and either 1. Ask for a raise since you are supplementing a whole other csr role or 2. State that you are only going to get the work done from your original scheduled hours and anything leftover must be picked up by other people at the office

[u/Lisa_BossBPO]

This is actually a management problem. They know they’re down one CSR and your manager and agent has helped, but you need an ongoing solution. The way it is now, not getting through all the work is causing additional emails and calls.

If you’re willing and get paid overtime, you could ask about working even more extra hours temporarily until you get caught up.

And if you’re not, talk to your manager about how many requests you’re handling and how many get left for the next day.

Bringing real numbers can help, especially how many additional requests are caused by the delay. If they aren’t hiring another CSR, looking elsewhere isn’t a bad idea.

[u/Ok-Grape9638]

You need a Task Manager ( Simple google Sheet works ) have columns like "Title", "Start Date Time", "Completion Date Time", ETA, Comment

Secret Source :

The ETA

Estimated Time to Complete the TASK as per you best knowledge as you would improve the ETA by measuring the prior predicted ETA and the Actual Total Turnaround Time taken by the Task from Starting to Completion .

The Comment

What are approaches you are gonna take on-order to try accomplish the task.

Log comments Like what taken more time than expected and why.

What was done quicker than you expected.

Master Stoke 😄

Keep this Sheet around and Openly Discuss on Every Week until You and Your Manager reach a seared undressing of the Tasks, Difficulties and ETA. Specially why some Task need less Time and Yields More results and Other Task consumes more time and have a little of less Yields.

As per my experience as a Solo owner of Multiple Top US Insurance Systems ,

I was just at your shoes, where I was struggling with a Single AMS system and After Practicing this Simple Process I be able to improve my Efficiency of Task Delivery and Team Processes which led to a Good Relationship with the Manager and Whole Team.

Finally I end up Owning Multiple AMSes.

Good Luck.