Pros
Great benefits. Decent pay.
Cons
Pushy sales atmosphere. I worked for USAA in the late 90's to 2001. The primary focus was providing excellent customer service, that ideology has disappeared. I went back to work for them in 2011. I was so excited to be working for them again. This time I had to take a sales class to teach me how determine what people need by asking questions that has nothing to do with their reason for calling. Basically, it teaches you to be nosy. Members do not like it. Every week we are "coached" by our team manager. People are pushed to say that they like it, when in all actuality, many people stress out every week wondering what they are going to be picked on about this week. I had one of the top closing rates in the department because I took the time to explain the process to the customer, yet I was told every week that I needed to follow the "call flow" that was taught in the Relationship Sales class. Yes, that is what they call it. All the magazines that publish the top 100 companies to work for in America, get those reports from an annual questionnaire that is given to all employees. They tell you it is confidential, but you are required to do it on your computer while you are logged in and they focus on this questionnaire for about a month, telling you how you should answer the questions. Everyone knows that the manager can see your screen and watch everything you do on the computer, and they can also determine who's is who's, so everyone is afraid to be honest. I know of a couple of people that were called out by their manager for answering something negatively. It used to be one of the greatest companies to work for. Now it's worse than being a car salesman. (Yes, I did that before too). The first time I worked there, I would give a member a quote and then if they were missing information or needed to call back for something, I would give them my extension and have them call me back. Now they won't let you give it out. We don't even get a voice mail any more. The extensions are for internal use only. There were many times that I received calls from irate customers because they had called in several times trying to fix a problem and had to re-explain the problem every time. In our weekly "coaching" our manager will go over your time log: your average call time, and the amount of time you spend in auxiliary mode which doesn't allow calls to come in. They don't want you in auxiliary mode unless it is for a scheduled event. I had two situations where members with multi-million dollar accounts that have been members for decades, were threatening to close all their accounts because they were tired of no one wanting to help fix their problem. Again, this is due to lack of training of the actual job, and too much concern of their phone log looking negative. My only concern was taking care of the member and putting them first while also looking out for the best interest of the company. I told them that I would personally take care of it and call them back. Of course, this caused me to use auxiliary mode, but I saved the accounts. The final straw was when I came in late, for the first time, and was counseled for it. Under normal circumstances, that would have been acceptable, but my management knew that I was getting radiation treatment every morning, and the reason I was late that day was because one of the radiation machines at the hospital broke and they were having to put everyone on one machine. My appointment ran over an hour late that day, causing me to be late. I had no signal in the hospital and was unable to call in to let them know what was going on. Another thing that just came to mind is the annual bonuses. My Last bonus, when I left in 2001 was 24%. That was well over the 18% that they've given out the last few years. Back then it was based on your performance. If you had poor performance, then you received less. The better performers received more. Now, everyone gets the same, so there is no initiative for them to do better.