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US College: Daunting Tasks 101--Adding Value to a Fortune 100 Company

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When Erin introduced herself, she shared the things she did and didn’t expect out of her internship. Overall, she seemed to be enjoying it thus far. We caught up with Erin to see how things were going and to hear more about her project!

"After I accepted my Intel internship offer I began to anticipate a summer within this diverse organization in a part of the country I had never been to. I joined the Intel intern

Facebook* group to get connected and I quickly saw students from impressive universities like Stanford, Purdue, Berkeley, and MIT also joining Intel for the summer. Even before joining this group I could hardly believe I was chosen among the other qualified candidates and I started to wonder if I’d be able to hold my own among these other bright students. I hoped my manager would not regret recruiting little old me from little old Idaho.

I am working in Intel Customer Support alongside the global operations team. This team is responsible for the performance of Intel’s contact centers across the globe. Several challenges face this group: increased pressure to reduce costs, improve customer satisfaction, and a need to communicate the benefit of technical troubleshooting to the rest of the company.

I was brought on largely to drive business process adherence. On my first day I was handed a large list of business process concerns and asked to take a look at them and then try to design a way to resolve them. Never mind that I wasn’t trained. Never mind that I hadn’t been taught the correct processes. Never mind that I was unfamiliar with their way of doing business or tackling problems. Naturally, the project was at once thrilling.

Though I was given a specific project to work on, I soon realized that I would be defining what I would do and how I would do it on my own. I was able to categorize issues and note patterns of non-compliance. Next, I interviewed a broad range of stakeholders to understand their different perspective and access needs. Once the issues were clarified, I polled several managers to help prioritize them.

Once I knew what I wanted to audit and why, I needed to identify how. Once again I turned to users of the tool to specify what I should see and what indicated a clear abuse of the defined business process. They explained use cases where patterns and results would differ. From these discussions I was able to document a way to audit the reports to identify when agents were using the tool correctly and when they were not.

The challenge now was to actually drive improvements in process adherence and close the gaps I had identified. Right away I knew one challenge was the scope I was dealing with. As I was analyzing issues from the various contact centers worldwide and I consequently noticed the behavioral issues (what I believed to be the root cause) were not localized but also worldwide.

I met regularly with the global operations team and presented these process gaps and clarified the correct processes. Working with these geographical representatives was both incredibly exciting and frighteningly intimidating. It was daunting to work alongside such a bright group. I started to question how I could get their attention and really convince them to work on my projects. I also needed their cooperation to make the changes I hoped to see.

I found that after a presentation or a meeting with these representatives, my mouth would be dry and my heartbeat was usually racing as I was challenged in a way I had never been before. As I put the phone back with shaky hands I also found that I never felt better. The team understood the importance of my proposed project and was ready to move forward. I found a place within my organization and a need that I could meet. As it turns out even little folk from Idaho can make a difference."

Thanks for sharing Erin! Sounds like you’ve been challenged but loving every moment of it! Can’t wait to hear your final thoughts on your internship soon! Check back in when we hear from Raymond and Antoniya!