Workshare Announces U.S.-Based Customer Service Center; New Sales and Services Management
Company Strengthens Customer Service While Building Sales Momentum with Three Sales Executives and Two New Offices
San Francisco, Calif.—August 23, 2004—Workshare, the leading provider of content change applications for professionals, today announced a new customer service center to better serve its North American customer base. In an effort to be closer to its customers in North America, Workshare opened a customer service center in San Francisco. Additionally, the company announces the appointment of new sales and services management, three seasoned sales executives and new offices in Chicago and New York City. Workshare’s new customer service center coupled with the addition of new offices allows Workshare to better serve its growing customer base.
By building a customer service base in the U.S., Workshare is making a fundamental shift in its customer service methodology from a call center environment to a true customer service center. In addition to live phone support, the company will offer Webinars to assist customers with product training and to address top customer issues, including best practices in deploying Workshare’s products. To improve outbound communication with customers, the company has implemented a system and process to proactively share new development and service information via email for those who sign up at support.workshare.com.
The new services center is one of the many changes being implemented by Chris Doell, who has joined Workshare as vice president of worldwide services. Mr. Doell has extensive experience in developing multinational customer service and IT operations for both start-up and established organizations such as DoubleClick, Sybase, Macromedia and Intuit. Most recently, Mr. Doell was co-founder and CEO of sportsTALK.com, which was acquired by ESPN.
“By October 1, Workshare will have 50% of its customer support staff back in the Americas,” said Doell. “The company is committed to providing prompt and superior service by placing regional account teams closer to our customer base and by focusing on improved tools for support – both via telephone and online. Our main goal is to ensure our customers get the most out of Workshare products.”
To round out its U.S. customer support, Workshare also appointed Norm Pensky as executive vice president and general manager, Americas. Mr. Pensky brings over 20 years experience as a proven sales and marketing executive in emerging and growth business conditions within the software and hosted services industries. He has previously held senior executive positions at Intraware, Macromedia and Oracle Corp.
Three new U.S. regional sales leaders, John Goodman, Scott Underwood and Michelle Sherman, will report into Mr. Pensky. Mr. Goodman will direct sales operations for the central region out of a new Chicago office. A licensed attorney, Mr. Goodman joins Workshare after a successful 10-year career at iManage/Interwoven and Baker Robbins & Co. Mr. Underwood will lead the eastern region sales efforts from a newly opened New York City office. Mr. Underwood, who was also previously with iManage/Interwoven, has vast experience in both direct and channel operations for various software solutions providers including Platinum Technology and Computer Associates. Workshare recently promoted Ms. Sherman to western region sales executive, a position she will fulfill from Workshare’s U.S. headquarters in San Francisco. Ms. Sherman, who joined Workshare as an inside sales executive after five years of sales and sales management positions with Wind River, combines extensive experience in software solutions with a deep knowledge of the Workshare products.
“It is Workshare’s priority to have a network of support and sales offices that provide the best possible service to its existing and new customers in all markets,” said Pensky. “While our products continue to serve the legal market, Workshare is carrying that momentum forward to also address content change and content security challenges in the finance, manufacturing and life sciences realms. With the company’s new presence in the eastern and central regions under the direction of these two accomplished leaders as well as new leadership in the western region, Workshare is well positioned to serve its growing customer base from coast to coast.”
About Workshare
Workshare is the industry leader providing document integrity applications for professionals in global enterprises. Its suite of high-value document lifecycle products includes award-winning Workshare 3 for review, Workshare DeltaView for verification, and Workshare Protect for security. Workshare’s customer base spans more than 70 percent of the Fortune 100 companies and 85 percent of the top 250 professional services firms, including Siemens, Caterpillar, Nortel Networks, Sony Music, Hartford Life Insurance, Wells Fargo, Clifford Chance, Baker & McKenzie, PwC and KPMG. In total, more than 4,300 companies and over 650,000 professionals in 60 countries use Workshare’s software. The company has offices in London, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, CapeTown, Hong Kong and Melbourne. Workshare is the sponsor of www.metadatarisk.org, the definitive source for content security. For more information, visit www.workshare.com.
