Gene Toombs does not question the high level of intelligence that his employees at MiTek Industries Inc. bring to their work. They need it to develop new software and improve machinery used by the company’s customers in the building components industry.
But if those employees who develop the products can’t work with the customers to get the most use out of it, this expertise doesn’t do anyone very much good.
“As much as they are brilliantly smart on the computer, they may not know the intricacies of what the guy in the office who uses the software has to do,” says Toombs, the company’s chairman and CEO.
It’s for that reason that everyone of MiTek’s 1,800 employees takes a regular turn interacting with the customers for whom the company is developing new products and services.
“Everybody here, no matter how technical they might be, because we have many computer programmers and very smart engineering guys with professional engineering stamps, they all go out and see a customer,” Toombs says.
“That’s part of our requirement. What we want them to do is basically understand the customer’s business from a sense of how you would be a good supplier to them. We want them to particularly feel the customer’s pain if the software is not correct.”
In this technical age of constantly updated software and new ways of doing things, this interaction is crucial to MiTek’s success. Revenue is only generated when customers know how to use the product they are buying. It’s why Toombs considers everyone at the company, including himself, a salesman.
Here are some of the ways Toombs puts MiTek in a better position to serve its customers through his employees.
