> If your software engineers don’t know at least some of the users on a first name basis they need to step it up. I have both customer support and developer ex

> If your software engineers don’t know at least some of the users on a first name basis they need to step it up. I have both customer support and developer experience. The customers your engineers will know on a first-name basis are probably the troublemakers: the ones who consume $100,000 in support costs for a $20,000 contract; the ones who always have another "helpful" suggestion for irrelevant new features; the ones who have psychological issues and form parasocial relationships with your team because even their own coworkers can't handle them. I have personally seen all these things several times over. Not to say that dev staff talking to customers is bad, just that it's very human and you have to watch out for all manner of things you wouldn't expect from reading some abstract blog post.