This is surprisingly common for large companies. It often isn't formalized because no one wants to dedicate engineers to going onsite with customers.
Often the expert is too valuable to give up, or is a poor choice for customer engagement. If you have a consulting team, they may lack the experience needed, or reputation, that the customer wants. As soon as you send the expert onsite, you will have a challenge not sending them at a later time. This scares off engineering managers from lending their engineers because inevitably they have to fight off the requests.
The better workflow is one where you can send a less expensive resource (however you measure it) onsite and have them work remotely with the expert. If you can stick with that you often end up with the onsite person leveling up their skills and the ability to re-engage in a scalable manner. Any engagement needs prep before the onsite, a plan for escalation when onsite, and a disengagement plan.
It was Agfa in Antwerp. Their guy was very polite but I had to explain to him what was going wrong. I think he was more tech support than anything else.
Edit: Apple also had to change the linker for the sake of Macromedia’s monolithic applications. Another story though.
Often the expert is too valuable to give up, or is a poor choice for customer engagement. If you have a consulting team, they may lack the experience needed, or reputation, that the customer wants. As soon as you send the expert onsite, you will have a challenge not sending them at a later time. This scares off engineering managers from lending their engineers because inevitably they have to fight off the requests.
The better workflow is one where you can send a less expensive resource (however you measure it) onsite and have them work remotely with the expert. If you can stick with that you often end up with the onsite person leveling up their skills and the ability to re-engage in a scalable manner. Any engagement needs prep before the onsite, a plan for escalation when onsite, and a disengagement plan.