I honestly think this is the best way to do it. I know a lot of software developers don't want to do this and I understand why.
But there's nothing like an engineer seeing the struggles people have for themselves and choosing to fix it so they don't have to field that damned question anymore (I'm saying this tongue-in-cheek).
Plus, you know as well as I do, the more people between your customers and your engineers, the more agenda's get injected into the mix.
The company had a voluntary program (for a while) where you got to shadow specific local customers for a day. It was unbelievable. I had been there about 2 hours before I had a long list of potential product ideas just from watching this guy struggle. Not just with our product, but mainly with the interaction between all the different machines and instruments he had to use to get his work done.
But there's nothing like an engineer seeing the struggles people have for themselves and choosing to fix it so they don't have to field that damned question anymore (I'm saying this tongue-in-cheek).
Plus, you know as well as I do, the more people between your customers and your engineers, the more agenda's get injected into the mix.