8 Top Tips to Maintain a Successful Intranet
Implementing any new platform or piece of software is exciting; everyone wants to get involved, have a play and be a part of its success. However, if you let it, it doesn’t take long for the enthusiasm and momentum it was greeted with to dwindle.
When it comes to managing an intranet these issues may be all too familiar:
A lot of intranet managers reading this won’t have the luxury of being able to devote all their time to the intranet, and even if they do, it isn’t easy to do alone. Bringing more of your business systems online, reaching out to your colleagues in the field, improving customer service and getting those final few engaged deserves time and energy. In fact, the average intranet manager has only 30 minutes to spend on this per week.
Every now and again we all need some help.
A fantastic source of help, one which we know at Interact is invaluable to our customers, and free, is the Community. It’s full of like-minded people who have experienced similar challenges and successes, all there to help each other – the Interact Community is a fantastic network of 330 customers who collaborate regularly.
A free training resource centre may also be an option for you. At Interact, our customers have access to Interact University which is full of comprehensive user guides for every level, whether people are just starting out or perhaps looking for a refresher.
If you’re looking for more strategic guidance or tailored training, it may be that you need to reach out to the experts, which in itself can be daunting if you don’t know where to look.
At Interact we have pooled together our team of strategists, trainers, designers and project managers to give our customers 150 years of experience to tap into. We work with our customers to determine the level of support required to help them achieve intranet success, and ensure the plan we recommend meets their goals and objectives.
We’ve put together some top tips from our Customer Success Plan for you to review against your own intranet strategy:
- Tailor a plan to your user and business needs in order to achieve your objectives, and regularly review to stop your intranet getting stale and problems setting in
- Identify where your intranet is falling short, whether it’s communicating change, homepage design or effective use of forums
- Measure any development amongst the team and keep track using a scorecard so you can check it’s delivering what you set out to achieve
- Tap into all available resources to help overcome challenges, including attending seminars, webinars and events, such as Interaction Intranet Conference to network and share best practice with industry peers
- Once you’re moving in the right direction, give your team and business a boost by submitting award entries, such as Ragan awards, which we have helped our customers win for three years running
- Keep up to date and fully versed with software releases to maximise its value by understanding how new features and applications fit into your intranet roadmap
- Maintain the health of your intranet with a support contract and keep up to date with any support queries which are outstanding
- Most importantly, don’t give up and remember you’re not alone…
