Internship Spotlight: Kristina Lynch
Our Internship Spotlight series was created to establish a platform where we could let the accomplishments of our talented study body shine. There is no shortage of exceptional students here at Providence College, which is why we love to give them the space to recount some of the aspects of their impressive internship experiences. From companies like L’Oreal to RXR Realty, the students of the PCSB transition from classroom to real world by taking what they’ve learned and applying it to their delegated roles. This week we are excited to introduce senior Kristina Lynch who spent the summer as an intern at BankNewport!
Q: What is your major?
I am a management and finance double major here at Providence College.
Q: When did you secure this internship?
I secured the position in March of 2017.
Q: What was your position at BankNewport?
I was a business banking intern. I worked with the business banking and commercial lending groups to gather and prepare loan documents, plan meetings and events, attend client meetings and loan closings, attend annual commercial review, and test a new customer relations platform prior to roll out.
Q: Were there any exciting projects or experiences that you were a part of at your internship?
I was really fortunate where I got to go on the road with our loan officers and our BDOs (Business Development Officers) to meet our clients. I was able to see some of them in their place of business and find out what their needs were. I got to go out and work face to face with the clients. I also got to work with our Treasury Department. Being in a small community bank everyone is really close together, so I really had the opportunity to cross sell products, whether it be treasury options or cash management or home loans. We were able to talk to all of the different departments to make sure our customers are satisfied all the way around. Yes, we’re on the business side, but we look to see if we can find personal options too. A lot of times customers like to work with one bank so they don’t have to move between multiple banks.
I also got to work on a new CRM (customer relationship management) system. I was testing it, it might have rolled out by now, but we were in the testing phase this summer. The whole point of having that system is regardless of who it is in the bank, whether it be in a retail branch or someone in commercial, they have the ability to look to see what contacts the bank has with them. So if someone in the retail branch says so-and-so came in to talk to me today they said they’re interested in x, y, and z. This is what their needs are. Then somebody else can go in and say, “Okay, I followed up with them, this is what they said.” So it’s basically making sure all of the communications are heard by everybody all the way around. Then everybody knows where to look when you want to know something about a client.
Q: When you were testing the new CRM system, were you testing it with customers or was it just internally?
What we did to test it was we pulled down the database at one point in time and all of the customers that were in there. They were our actual customers, so I would go in write down who had called and what had happened. Then I would send the request to someone else in the department who the customer said they wanted to talk to. It would then alert that employee to follow up with the customer. If it’s not someone specific it will just file away, but it can also be sent as an alert to someone else if need be. Other employees can come back and respond to what you said as well. It was technically real customers, but it wasn’t active. We had pulled it down from our actual site, so we weren’t playing with live information. We did this just in case anything happened we weren’t messing up our actual client data base.
Q: What did your normal day look like?
In the morning I would come in and check e-mails and do what needed to be done. I would do the tasks sent to me via our portal—so to speak—and take part in the odds and ends of meetings. It was a lot of fun! Since it’s such a small bank everyone is within arms length, and you can talk to anyone in any department. This allowed me to take part in a lot of different things.
Read about more PCSB students and their Internship Spotlights here!
