Partnering with an employee experience vendor or intranet vendor: What type of support to expect and look for

Employee experience vendor and intranet vendor support are central to long‑term EX success. This post – the fifth in our Steps to EX platform success series – explains the support you can (and should) expect from employee experience and intranet vendors, how partnering works in practice, and how to get the most value from that relationship. 

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When evaluating employee experience (EX) platforms and intranets, features are only part of the story. Sustained support is what turns software into results. A solid support model smooths the launch process, ensures high adoption rates, and helps you keep pace with new goals, teams, and ways of working as your business evolves.

In this post, we have answers to the most common questions about working with employee experience vendors, including: What type of support do employee experience vendors and intranet vendors provide? What should you expect when partnering with a new vendor? What does that partnership look like day‑to‑day? Read on to find the definition of EX vendor support, the must‑have elements of support you shouldn’t compromise on, and tips to maximize your vendor partnership. 

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What is employee experience vendor support?

Employee experience vendor support is the end‑to‑end set of services your provider uses to keep your EX platform healthy, helpful, and improving over time. Intranet vendor support works the same (the only difference is the type of platform being used).

The type of support a vendor provides typically includes: 

• Structured onboarding and migration to move you from “we’ve signed” to “employees rely on it” 

• Role‑based training and self‑serve learning so admins, authors, and end users can succeed

• Technical support, proactive monitoring, and regular updates to keep performance steady and secure

• Ongoing success management – dedicated members of your vendor’s team who review usage and steer tailored improvements

• Customer community and advocacy to learn from peers and showcase your wins

High-quality employee experience vendor support evolves over time to fit your employee experience needs: guidance and structure before launch; risk‑managed migration; training and go‑live; then regular optimization so value compounds over time. 

Seven key elements of ongoing vendor support 

Here’s what “good” looks like long-term. From strategic pointers to technical support to a library of resources, this is what an intranet or employee experience vendor should provide. 

1. Continuous optimization: Your vendor should regularly review usage, search, and engagement patterns and translate them into “do this next” recommendations (for example: prune stale content, simplify navigation, promote under‑used features, or reshape communications). 
2. Expert guidance: Your vendor should consistently share new EX tactics, design and accessibility best practices; fresh engagement ideas, and adoption strategies informed by other organizations like yours. 
3. Always‑on help: Multichannel support with prompt, human responses – and proactive monitoring to catch issues early – keeps the experience reliable. Launch is the starting line, not the finish. 
4. Right‑sized learning: A living library of tutorials, webinars, guides, and workshops means you don’t wait on one‑off training. Your authors learn quickly, and new admins can get up to speed when they need to. 
5. Internal advocacy: Your vendor should help you tell your own success story with data – that means a dedicated CSM that works with you to highlight wins, make resource asks with confidence, and keep leaders aligned on EX goals and outcomes. 
6. Strategic visibility: Opportunities to share your impact – customer events, case studies, and awards – build credibility, attract champions, and maintain momentum. 
7. A support community: Peer forums and resource hubs let you borrow what works without the need to reinvent every workflow or campaign. 

What types of support should you expect when partnering with an employee experience vendor or intranet vendor? 

Strong employee experience vendor and intranet vendor support will include technical setup of your platform, onboarding and migration strategy and assistance, admin and user training, and a dedicated team on your side for the duration of the partnership. Here are more details on what to expect: 

How do technical support and proactive monitoring work? 

You should have a clear way to raise, track, and escalate issues (think help desk, email, or phone options). Expect defined issue types (so “how‑to” questions aren’t treated the same as outages), target response windows, and transparent updates. Proactive monitoring and routine security and feature updates help address problems before they reach employees. 

When weighing EX or intranet providers (or even at the start of your relationship with a vendor), don’t be afraid to ask detailed and practical questions that reveal what the day-to-day support experience is really like: how to contact support, how cases are prioritized, what “response” vs. “resolution” means, and how after‑hours incidents are handled. 

What onboarding and migration support should we expect? 

Whether you’re creating a brand-new employee experience platform or migrating your content from elsewhere, your vendor will play an active role in setting up your new solution. 

The best employee experience and intranet vendors will offer several migration options so that you can pick one that matches your capacity. For example, they may allow you to choose from the following three approaches: 

• Guidance only: Your team leads the process using vendor-provided frameworks and templates. 

• Staff augmentation: Your team leads the process, but the vendor provides hands-on assistance where needed. 

• Fully managed migration: The vendor has complete responsibility for the entire migration, from planning through execution, with minimal burden on your team. 

So, when presented with your vendor’s migration options, which type of support should you choose? This depends on your unique needs, but here at Interact, we often recommend an option with more involvement from your vendor for several reasons: 

• With seasoned professionals managing every detail, it’s more likely the project will stay on-schedule and complication-free. 

• Your team can stay focused on day-to-day operations. 

• A vendor-led approach ensures an easy, efficient, and secure extraction and migration of any existing data. 

Whatever model you choose, expect your vendor to provide detailed guidance or documentation on project milestones, who on your team should own what, risk controls (pilot cohorts, test scripts, rollback plans) and performance checks before go‑live, and post-migration optimization (early adoption review, search tuning, content refresh plan).

What training and resources do employee experience and intranet vendors typically provide? 

Your vendor should also partner with you on training. The best intranet and employee experience vendors will lay out role‑based training paths (admins, authors, end users) and provide an on‑demand library of tutorials, webinars, and step‑by‑step guides. After launch, you’ll want refreshers and advanced workshops so teams can adopt new features without disruption. 

Who on an EX or intranet vendor’s team will we work closest with? 

The best employee experience and intranet vendors will assign dedicated individuals from their team to work with you throughout the partnership. These people will help you optimize your platform over time and get the most out of what the vendor provides. Two common roles are: 

Customer Success Manager (CSM)

Your CSM is a dedicated individual on your vendor’s team who knows your organization well and keeps the platform delivering outcomes – not just features. This person: 

• Aligns goals and success metrics, then translates usage insights into clear actions – for example: improve findability, refresh content, or raise adoption (this last one is key: among stakeholders who regretted a software purchase in 2025, 39% cited lack of adoption as a factor)

• Runs regular success reviews and shares practical resources and industry best practices 

• Communicates progress, surfaces wins, and helps you make the internal case for time and budget 

• Helps you make the most of new features and adapt your platform to changes within your business

• Invites you to participate in industry events, awards entries, and case studies

Technical Account Manager (TAM)

A TAM is a proactive technical advisor, often offered where deeper guidance is helpful. They work to connect your objectives to how the platform is designed, integrated, and run. This person:

• Maps your environment, conductshealth checks, and recommends performance, security, and configuration improvements

• Spots risks and opportunities early, suggesting ways to reduce admin friction, boost reliability, and plan for expansion 

• Advocates for your priorities, facilitates roadmap conversations, and keeps executive stakeholders aligned 

What does an EX vendor’s customer community provide? 

Many EX vendors and intranet vendors offer a customer community – a vendor‑hosted hub where teams swap ideas, ask questions, and share what’s working. Think of it as a shortcut to real‑world answers: you’re learning from practitioners who’ve already solved the problems you’re tackling. This space may include:

• Peer discussion boards and Q&A pages for quick, practical answers 

• Reusable resources like tutorials, webinars, guides, templates, and case examples you can adapt quickly 

• A chance to provide feedback and suggest new features to the vendor 

• Self‑serve, on‑demand access to a curated knowledge base and updates, so admins and authors can self‑serve answers and learn how to refine their use 

A well-supported community helps your team solve faster, avoid rework, and keep skills current as the platform evolves. 

What red flags should you look for in employee experience vendor support? 

While you’re digging through feature overviews, filling in vendor checklists, and sitting through EX demos and trials, be on the lookout for these support warning signs – they’re quick to spot and tell you a lot about how a partnership will feel day‑to‑day. 

• No named contacts. If you’re told “a team” will look after you rather than a designated customer success manager, expect hand‑offs, slower context, and more chasing. You want one person accountable for outcomes. 

• Vague promises. “Best effort” language, fuzzy response windows, and a murky escalation path all signal risk. Ask for how severity is defined, who escalates issues, and what “good” looks like in a typical month.

• Only a DIY migration option. Complex projects rarely succeed on documentation alone. A strong vendor offers choices (for example, a self-directed approach with vendor guidance, a vendor-led approach, or a hybrid approach) so you can match support to your team’s capacity and timeline. 

• Little emphasis on training and content ownership. If training sounds like a one‑off webinar – or there’s no mention of author enablement and content governance – it’s a recipe for poor adoption over time. Look for a vendor with role‑based resources and ongoing refreshers instead.

• No regular success reviews or shared metrics. If there’s no set cadence for reviewing adoption, search success, and content health with your vendor, you’ll be reacting to issues – not improving proactively.

• Community is an afterthought. A healthy customer community saves time and improves your use of the platform through peer Q&A, reusable templates, and practical how‑tos. If all “resources” live in scattered emails, you’ll spend more time reinventing the wheel.

• Contract terms that gloss over support mechanics. If maintenance windows, renewals, data handling/return, and liability aren’t clear in the Master Subscription Agreement (MSA), you may struggle when things get busy. Ask how the agreement and referenced service targets work together. 

In short: look for clarity, accountability, and continuity – named roles, written expectations, real enablement, and a rhythm of review – so support becomes a lever for outcomes, not just a way to close tickets.

How can you get the most from an EX or intranet vendor partnership? 

Here are our favorite tips to make the most out of your EX or intranet vendor partnership and ensure the best outcome for your platform:

• Start with shared objectives. Work with your vendor to pick three to five goals and align on how you’ll measure them. If these goals are set out at the start of your journey, you can revisit them throughout the relationship.
• Assign jobs early. Identify your internal project lead, content owners, and an IT point person. Clarify who approves what and when to make the partnership run smoothly and avoid any roadblocks.
• Take advantage of your vendor’s training catalog. Enroll admins and authors in role‑based courses; publish a simple “how to” list for employees; schedule refreshers before major releases. 
• When in doubt, ask. It’s your vendor’s job to support you. They’ve helped many people like you launch and maintain EX platforms over time, which means they’ll have great advice or solutions for anything you may be stuck on or struggling with. 
• Share wins. Work with your CSM to submit case studies and award nominations. This helps you build internal momentum for a better employee experience and shines a spotlight on your achievements. 

Partnering with an employee experience vendor or intranet vendor: Frequently asked questions