Customer Support & Account Management

Summer 2023

Position: Client Services Summer Associate 
Student: English Senior, UTNY Participant 

AlphaSights is a global expert network firm that serves as a knowledge-on-demand platform for clients looking to get smart quick in specific industries and markets. The clients are typically consultancies, private equity funds, and institutional investors. There are multiple departments within the firm that cover multiple types of consultations. As a client services associate, you are tasked with matching top industry professionals with your clients for a paid short-term consultation for various projects. I found this internship through the UTNY program and recruited through this program as well. As for the duties of the role, you are responsible for managing multiple projects across different industries and tasked with delivering high-level industry professionals that can break down their experience in the industry with your clients. My favorite thing about the role is the autonomy given to you in the position. 

Summer 2017

Position: Data Analyst Intern
Student: Economics and Engineering Junior 

What do most people think of when they hear of “AT&T?” They likely hold up their phones and commend their favorite cell service provider for its exceptional commitment to the overall customer experience. When you intern at AT&T, you work with and meet people who are passionate about improving the customer experience with the best products and services in the industry. AT&T is not just a telecom/wireless services company, it is a technology and media company as well. This is something most interns aren’t aware of when they first start at AT&T. Though yes, the acronym stands for American Telephone and Telegraph, clearly AT&T does not even offer telegraph services anymore. It has withstood the test of time and has evolved to meet the demands of the most tech-savvy consumers. AT&T is transforming itself into a media company; with the new surrounding the potential Time Warner acquisition, AT&T is set to take over a new industry. Interns will be able to work on projects involving Game of Thrones (HBO) and even major news platforms such at CNN.

I am a Data Analyst intern, which means I must have a penchant for math and statistics. Throughout this internship, I was challenged to think on my feet technically and qualitatively. The leadership specifically informed us of their interest in our work and their desire to hear from us at the end. Therefore, from the start I was determined to contribute something to AT&T. A typical day for me consisted of coming in between 8:00 AM – 8:30 AM, which was a time that I was allowed to pick, thankfully. I would open my inbox and respond to any emails and messages received. Then I would reconvene with my intern team and speak to them about the plans for the day. We would discuss our plans and then get right to work on the models and data sets we were given to work on. At some point, it becomes lunch time and I go down to the cafeteria and play ping pong. Once I return from lunch the scripts we run to calculate values from the data sets are usually finished and we have some results to look at. We discuss the findings and determine whether or not they are significant. If so, we report the findings to our supervisor and end the day. As you can see, my internship involved a lot of teamwork.

Summer 2015

Position: LTCOOP UA
Student: Economics Senior

At the core of the AT&T LTCOOP position, the job is simply ticket creation. Our team, of about 30 interns, acts as the first point of contact for AT&T business customers who are experiencing network outages. These outages can include Internet, telephone, teleconferencing, and server outages. When a customer has a network issue they call our team to create tickets that will ultimately lead to a resolution/fix.

Our team simply creates detailed tickets and serves as a middle man between the AT&T customers and the tier 2 technicians and network engineers. In addition to creating tickets, we will tier 2 technicians via conference calls when necessary. The LTCOOP position strictly deals with business customers. This means strong verbal communication skills are a must. This may seem intimidating at first—and it was, but it is actually better than dealing with residential customers. These are business calls and most of the calls are conducted in such a manner whereas residential calls tend to be more heated with high tensions and frustration.

The hiring process is simple: Apply online, submit a resume, make it through a casual interview, and submit a drug test. Upon completion of these tasks, AT&T will provide you with intensive network training free of costs. The training that AT&T provides looks great on a resume and will be seen as an asset to any firm as all firms rely on networks of some form today. After training you take calls, create tickets, provide updates, and perform basic network troubleshooting from a midlevel cubicle with dual monitor setups.

My favorite aspect of this job is that we are able to work with autonomy. There is no need to communicate with management regularly, although they are always available, which means we can perform our work without being micromanaged throughout the day.

Spring 2017

Position: Account Management Associate
Student: Economics Senior

Every morning at work, the first thing every employee does is check to see if there are any emails from our customers, any order made the night before, and answer any phone calls that may occur. After 40 minutes have passed, our supervisor assigns every member our task for the day. Some of these tasks may be leftover tasks from the day before. When we get graphics cards returned to us through UPS, we clean and test them out for quality assurance. Afterwards, we relist them on our website for customers to be able to lease. Towards the end of the day, we package every graphics card ready to be sent out to our customers who completed their orders after going through our order verification process. Every Wednesday, every employee is assigned with calling customers who are past due on their payments. This is a daily occurrence while working at my company. I also have additional tasks solely assigned to me such as managing our social media and revenue reconciliation. Every Monday and Wednesday morning, I search for potential content for our social media. In order to do this, I research the current trends and hot topics. Once this is done, I carefully choose images known as “memes” for our social media based on how appealing they are for our audiences. The time that I post the content is crucial as posting in the morning yield the best results. For our company’s revenue reconciliation, I do them once our financial data for the previous month is available. This is an arduous tasks as the spreadsheets are riddled with mistakes from past employees. 

Fall 2016

Position: Customer Success Intern
Student: Economics Sophomore

A RigUp internship is far different than any other internship I have ever had or heard of. As a RigUp intern you work hand in hand with the employees not beneath them. When you first arrive at work you will spend a few minutes getting settled at your desk. You are free to enjoy the breakfast tacos that are delivered daily or maybe you decide to grab a cup of coffee. Once you are properly fueled for the day you will jump right into the tasks for the day. Though there are days that special tasks will be given to you on a normal day you will be collecting or uploading compliance documents, managing all of the RFQ’s (Request For Quote), and fixing any problems that our customers may experience. When working on compliance interns call vendors and figure out who the best point of contact is and then make sure that they receive the document request and if necessary follow up with the vendors who have failed to upload the proper documents. Managing RFQ’s is what most of your time will be spent on. When an operator submits an RFQ they provide a list of vendors that they would like to receive pricing from. Initially interns must determine who at the individual companies will handle the RFQ. Once the RFQ begins to approach the submission due date interns call the person who are handling the RFQ and make sure that they are aware of the approaching deadline and make sure they did not have any problems or questions that would prevent them from submitting pricing. On top of these two things interns are constantly tasked with fixing any issues any of our users are having. Most of these problems are simple usability issues in which the user cannot figure out how to upload documents or pricing. RigUp interns are encouraged to examine the workflow and look for ways to increase functionality of our product.

Spring 2017

Position: Customer Support Intern
Student: English Senior

At Service Direct I was allowed to create my own schedule. My bosses have been very flexible about when I needed to be in and when I could leave, as long as I got my work done. The job itself is comprised of various tasks: answering client phone calls, answering support tickets about client concerns or questions, writing monthly newsletters, contributing to social media posts, learning AdWords, receiving my AdWords Certification, adding ideas to team meetings and office meetings, sending out customer service gifts for our top clients, and completing other tasks each day to help with the team workflow.

A typical day at the office for me begins when I arrive around 9:00 AM or 9:30 AM on Tuesdays and Thursdays when I do not have class. I usually start my day by looking at my scheduled call calendar and I complete those calls throughout the day. I will then create Mail Chimp campaigns for upcoming Webinars or I will help the Content Editor when she needs it in between my scheduled calls. Throughout the day I will answer the Support phone line and complete any tasks my supervisor set out for me. Sometimes this entails gathering data about clients, or designing the newsletter, or coming up with new ideas (i.e. we started doing bulk onboarding by creating an onboarding webinar for our clients to join in on). Each day is different at Service Direct, but one thing is for sure, I will talk to at least one client every day and answer at least one support ticket. On Mondays and Wednesdays I have half days. I arrive at 1:00 PM and leave anywhere from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM. Mondays are for meetings. We first have our team meeting (customer support) and then the group meeting after. 

Position: Customer Support Intern
Student: English Senior

At Service Direct I was allowed to create my own schedule. My bosses have been very flexible about when I needed to be in and when I could leave, as long as I got my work done. The job itself is comprised of various tasks: answering client phone calls, answering support tickets about client concerns or questions, writing monthly newsletters, contributing to social media posts, learning AdWords, receiving my AdWords Certification, adding ideas to team meetings and office meetings, sending out customer service gifts for our top clients, and completing other tasks each day to help with the team workflow.

A typical day at the office for me begins when I arrive around 9:00 AM or 9:30 AM on Tuesdays and Thursdays when I do not have class. I usually start my day by looking at my scheduled call calendar and I complete those calls throughout the day. I will then create Mail Chimp campaigns for upcoming Webinars or I will help the Content Editor when she needs it in between my scheduled calls. Throughout the day I will answer the Support phone line and complete any tasks my supervisor set out for me. Sometimes this entails gathering data about clients, or designing the newsletter, or coming up with new ideas (i.e. we started doing bulk onboarding by creating an onboarding webinar for our clients to join in on). Each day is different at Service Direct, but one thing is for sure, I will talk to at least one client every day and answer at least one support ticket. On Mondays and Wednesdays I have half days. I arrive at 1:00 PM and leave anywhere from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM. Mondays are for meetings. We first have our team meeting (customer support) and then the group meeting after. 

Spring 2017

Position: Account Management Associate
Student: Economics Senior

Every morning at work, the first thing every employee does is check to see if there are any emails from our customers, any order made the night before, and answer any phone calls that may occur. After 40 minutes have passed, our supervisor assigns every member our task for the day. Some of these tasks may be leftover tasks from the day before. When we get graphics cards returned to us through UPS, we clean and test them out for quality assurance. Afterwards, we relist them on our website for customers to be able to lease. Towards the end of the day, we package every graphics card ready to be sent out to our customers who completed their orders after going through our order verification process. Every Wednesday, every employee is assigned with calling customers who are past due on their payments. This is a daily occurrence while working at my company. I also have additional tasks solely assigned to me such as managing our social media and revenue reconciliation. Every Monday and Wednesday morning, I search for potential content for our social media. In order to do this, I research the current trends and hot topics. Once this is done, I carefully choose images known as “memes” for our social media based on how appealing they are for our audiences. The time that I post the content is crucial as posting in the morning yield the best results. For our company’s revenue reconciliation, I do them once our financial data for the previous month is available. This is an arduous tasks as the spreadsheets are riddled with mistakes from past employees. 

Fall 2016

Position: Customer Success Intern
Student: Economics Sophomore

A RigUp internship is far different than any other internship I have ever had or heard of. As a RigUp intern you work hand in hand with the employees not beneath them. When you first arrive at work you will spend a few minutes getting settled at your desk. You are free to enjoy the breakfast tacos that are delivered daily or maybe you decide to grab a cup of coffee. Once you are properly fueled for the day you will jump right into the tasks for the day. Though there are days that special tasks will be given to you on a normal day you will be collecting or uploading compliance documents, managing all of the RFQ’s (Request For Quote), and fixing any problems that our customers may experience. When working on compliance interns call vendors and figure out who the best point of contact is and then make sure that they receive the document request and if necessary follow up with the vendors who have failed to upload the proper documents. Managing RFQ’s is what most of your time will be spent on. When an operator submits an RFQ they provide a list of vendors that they would like to receive pricing from. Initially interns must determine who at the individual companies will handle the RFQ. Once the RFQ begins to approach the submission due date interns call the person who are handling the RFQ and make sure that they are aware of the approaching deadline and make sure they did not have any problems or questions that would prevent them from submitting pricing. On top of these two things interns are constantly tasked with fixing any issues any of our users are having. Most of these problems are simple usability issues in which the user cannot figure out how to upload documents or pricing. RigUp interns are encouraged to examine the workflow and look for ways to increase functionality of our product.

Spring 2017

Position: Customer Support Intern
Student: English Senior

At Service Direct I was allowed to create my own schedule. My bosses have been very flexible about when I needed to be in and when I could leave, as long as I got my work done. The job itself is comprised of various tasks: answering client phone calls, answering support tickets about client concerns or questions, writing monthly newsletters, contributing to social media posts, learning AdWords, receiving my AdWords Certification, adding ideas to team meetings and office meetings, sending out customer service gifts for our top clients, and completing other tasks each day to help with the team workflow.

A typical day at the office for me begins when I arrive around 9:00 AM or 9:30 AM on Tuesdays and Thursdays when I do not have class. I usually start my day by looking at my scheduled call calendar and I complete those calls throughout the day. I will then create Mail Chimp campaigns for upcoming Webinars or I will help the Content Editor when she needs it in between my scheduled calls. Throughout the day I will answer the Support phone line and complete any tasks my supervisor set out for me. Sometimes this entails gathering data about clients, or designing the newsletter, or coming up with new ideas (i.e. we started doing bulk onboarding by creating an onboarding webinar for our clients to join in on). Each day is different at Service Direct, but one thing is for sure, I will talk to at least one client every day and answer at least one support ticket. On Mondays and Wednesdays I have half days. I arrive at 1:00 PM and leave anywhere from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM. Mondays are for meetings. We first have our team meeting (customer support) and then the group meeting after.