A Day In The CX Life With CCW Digital: Meet Alyssa Del-Valle, Client Relationship Specialist at Macmillan Learning

Welcome back to A Day In The CX Life With CCW Digital, a series where we take a look into the people, technology, tools and trends that drive the customer contact industry. In this series we ask employees just like you to share how they spend their workday–from wake-up routines to meetings and what’s on their dinner plate for the evening.

In this daily log we meet Alyssa Del-Valle, a Client Relationship Specialist at Macmillan Learning. If you think back to your schooldays, you likely leafed through a Macmillan textbook, downloaded a digital component for classes, wrote your name in the inside of a book log, or wrapped a copy up in a brown paper bag. And if you look up Alyssa's background, it turns out that you may know her face–or her voice–from her work as a Cast Member at Walt Disney World or her pratice as a voiceover actress. 

Over the years Del-Valle has worked with or collaborated with additional outlets and organizations like Buzzfeed, Nickelodeon and Princeton University. But today, she takes us through what a standard Wednesday in CX looks like for.

Name:  Alyssa Del-Valle

Occupation/Company: Client Relationship Specialist, Macmillan Learning

Industry: Publishing

Age: 29

Location: New York

Years At Role: 6

Daily Tasks: Check and field for client queries, prepare presentation for trainings, generate new campaign ideas, and develop programming for our company Employee Resource Group (ERG).

Professional Goals: To broaden my skill set and create new opportunities for myself that allow me to foster my creativity.

Personal Hobbies: Voiceover work, singing/songwriting, watching analytical video essays, and making travel itineraries for myself and friends.

WEDNESDAY

7:15 a.m: The early bird catches the worm, but I like to catch every zzz possible! I have a long commute from the top of the Bronx to the bottom of Manhattan, and since Wednesdays are my in-office days, it’s rise and shine time.

(On WFH days I extra some extra shut eye). I’m not a coffee drinker, but the long commute gives me enough time to fully wake up for the day. 

9:30 a.m: Now that I’m in the office, I grab some hot chocolate to get me going and say hello to my collegues. Once I’m settled into my desk, it’s time to log in and organize my day, which always changes depending on the season.

My high seasons are at the beginning of every college school semester since my clients are college professors and I particularly specilaize a digital engagement tool called iClicker. Today my agenda consists of:

• 2 scheduled iClicker Trainings
• A Client Relationship Specialist (CRS) team meeting
• A Women at Macmillan Learning Employee Resource Group (Women@ML ERG) Co-Lead committee meeting
• Sending university admins our iClicker product updates
• Unknown surprises in between!

As I organize my day, I also respond to client emails that came in overnight.

10 a.m.: Training time! I have the pleasure of getting to speak with instructors across many disciplines at “Gold” and “Platinum” status universities in my territory (their status based on accrued sales).

My clients are mostly post-adoption users who want to learn how to utilize iClicker for an active learning classroom environment. I typically go over a product overview, conduct a live demonstration of the software, and reinforce active learning by getting instructors involved in polls.

If it is a more private training, I will have the instructor share their screen to make sure they are set up for the term. By the end they finish their training set up for success! Along the way we banter, provide encouragement, and just get to know each other as people. 

11:15 a.m.: We got a little chatty (building relationships, yay!) so our training ends a little past the hour. After stretching, getting some water, and throwing a meme in our team Slack channel, it’s time to write up some notes on the training in Salesforce and compose a follow-up email for the instructor(s). 

12 p.m.: It’s time for our Team Meeting! Our team is small but we are a very communicative group and are really great at keeping up with eachother.

After checking in with eachother we share details on common questions instructors ask, customer feedback or issues, develop pedagogical strategies, and handle anything else we need to reach out to the Product or Marketing team for.

1p.m.: Time for some GRUB! Thankfully our office gives us a stipend every Wednesday to a new restaurant each week to get us all free lunch. I eat like a queen every Wednesday.

2 p.m.: Meet up time with my Cultural and Education co-lead on the Women@ML Employee Resource Group. We delve into programming ideas we want to produce for our committee, keeping our company’s DEI initiatives in mind. We had recently worked on our company’s first annual Women’s Wellness Event, so today we are mostly talking employee surveys and metrics. 

I'm also emailing while jamming to Spotify. My music taste ranges from pop to neo-soul to Broadway musicals, but on busy days like today, I stick to lofi beats. I love studio Ghibli music scores!

We receive tons of inquiries from professors and institution admins about iClicker and must respond to these inquiries individually. Some questions are more complex than others, and take a bit more problem solving and critical thinking. 

3:30 p.m.: Training # 2! This time instead of a regular training session, this instructor had questions about two different digital Macmillan products. We go through them together and end our call with a successful schoolgrade sync setup and connection. This training ends a little early, so I mad dash to Walgreens for some Doritos 'cause the craving is REALLLL.

4:20 p.m.: A frustrated instructor enters the chat! One of our sales reps loops me into an email chain of an instructor having issues with a Single Sign On setup. This calls for an on-the-fly Zoom meeting.

We hop on a call together and I de-escalate the situation. Thankfully, we find a temporary workaround and I report the technical issue to our Product team. In the coming days, I’ll keep the instructor updated about the progress of the ticket and reach back out to Sales to keep them in the loop.

4:50 p.m.: Catch up time! After making sure all my notes are in on Salesforce and my follow-up emails have been sent, I work on some proactive outreach, letting admins know of upcoming updates in iClicker and linked resources to check out–they appreciate the personal touch. ;)

5:25 p.m.: Today was busy, and it’s still going! I start heading out to my musical theatre improvization class, which starts at 6. I started taking classes because I wanted to improve my improv skills and have fun singing at the same time. 

Alyssa Del-Valle during an improv singing class.

6 p.m.: Class time! Since I’m in Koreatown I grab a quick bite from the Food Gallery and head up to class. This class we're learning more about song structure and singing songs we make up on the spot. If I weren’t taking classes today I’d probably be working on my voiceover work, but since I only have class once a week, voice waits for another day.

In this animated short, Del Valle lends her voiceover talent to the character of a panda.

8:15 p.m.: Can you believe I’ve been active for over 13 hours? Me neither. I don’t have kids so I’m taking advantage of this time and energy while I have it!

Thankfully for me my boyfriend lives near Astoria, Queens, so the commute home today 30 minutes instead of 1 hour and 45 minutes. I need to move closer, oh boy.

8:45 p.m.: I get to see my boyfriend and tell him all about my day, and vice versa. Now that our two extraverted selves have spilled about our day, it’s already 10pm. Time FLIES, let me tell you. 

11 p.m.: After showering, chatting, and decompressing from the day it’s time to relax! We both love watching anime or movies, so we change it up every so often. I’m a night owl, so I’m usually up until 1 a.m. before finally knocking out. How I don’t drink coffee at all in my day is a mystery, even to me...

Photos and videos courtesy of Alyssa Del Valle.

Know somebody who might be a good fit for our series? If you’d like to nominate a member of your team or highlight new initiative your organization is tackling through your work, email wandy.ortiz@cmpteam.com