You might not realize this, but your users hate you. That’s right. Hate you. They hate you because you are responsible for SharePoint and their experience sucks of late. What started out as a promising way to collaborate has turned into a burden. Your users know they should use SharePoint to better manage the vast amount of information and data they create. They love the power and ease of use of SharePoint, but after a litany of issues with their environment they have given up and gone back to using file shares and email. Here’s why they hate you and what you can do to make them love you again.

Reason #5.  No one is in charge

Your users need help. They have lots of questions, concerns, and issues. They want to know how to design their site, how to recover data, and if they should trust their site after that 2 hour outage yesterday. But there is no one to talk to. There’s no face of SharePoint, no one cares about them and their problems. Sites go down and come back up hours later with no explanation. Worse, users contact helpdesk for help. Three days later they find out that nothing can be done and their ticket is closed.

Maybe you know this is a problem and you are trying to solve it. Perhaps you are too busy managing the company’s Exchange infrastructure to focus on this little SharePoint niche. Maybe you don’t want users to know you are in charge. All those questions, accusations, and anger are too much to handle. Regardless, it’s time to step up and take charge. Here’s how:

·         Create a FAQ wiki. Make sure users can ask questions and that you answer them.

·         Take charge of helpdesk.

·         Send an email to the entire company. Communicate 3 main things. You’re in charge. You care. You are looking into their problems and will communicate solutions soon. Let them know about your helpdesk improvements and your new wiki.

·         Follow up. After reading the rest of this series and resolving issues 1 through 4, send out another email letting your users know what you have done. It’s a quick way to garner respect and possibly a way to build an empire.