What would you make of a company that allows only their salespeople to interface with customers? What does it say about the company if their engineers don't discuss design with the customer, having little say in what they create? I have been working with a company lately that does just this--for the most part preferring that only the general manager and salespeople maintain contact with customers. Doesn't this effectively isolate many of those who are most involved with, knowledgeable about, and responsible for the company's product offering ?
From what I've seen, this seems to be the usual progression:
1) Customer tells Sales what he/she wants (Note: want ≠ need in many cases).
2) Sales relays Customer's wants to Engineering.
3) Engineering designs product to given specifications, and sends it back to Sales.
4) Sales presents design to Customer, who offers feedback (often likely to be negative)
5) Sales returns to Engineering and relays Customer's requested design changes.
6) Repeat Steps 3-5 ad nauseam--until Customer either finally accepts the design or gets sick of waiting around and finds someone else.
At virtually every step of the way, one party is relying on assumptions and inferences made about the other party and their wants and needs. Add in the probability of something getting lost in translation, and we have one twisted game of "Telephone" with significant financial consequences.
From my perspective, it seems virtually impossible to effectively develop successful products in a reasonable timeframe when you have a system as inefficient as this. No wonder projects are always behind schedule and customers seem perpetually annoyed! It's not that the engineers don't know how to design--they just don't know what to design because they don't understand the need or context.
It's as though they are peering at the customer through a telescope--completely removed from the application and seeing only the portion of the greater picture that appears in their lens. Most of the time, they can't even tell what they're looking at and have to rely on Sales to interpret for them.
Perhaps if they were involved early on, interacting with the customer from the start, they might stand a better chance of understanding the need and designing appropriately. Projects would flow more efficiently, customers would get their products on-time and might even stay cheerful, and solutions would be far more effective.
Unfortunately, change is not likely in this company. Everyone with whom I've ever discussed this not only considers it infeasible, but actually even better that they maintain a single point-of-contact with the customer. That way, they reduce confusion and avoid sending conflicting messages.
...How unfortunate and ironic then, that confusion is the main byproduct of their current mentality.
