Beauty and personal care brand Mamaearth's co-founder Ghazal Alagh frequently shares insightful tips on social media with her followers. Recently, the Chief Executive Officer shared that she learnt one "amazing technique" from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos which helps her conduct strategic meetings.
Ms Alagh took to LinkedIn to share the same with her followers. In a post, she wrote, "Imagine your consumers sitting in every strategic meeting you hold. We at Honasa Consumer Ltd., keep one chair empty at each of our strategic meetings and assume that our consumers are sitting there. I learned this amazing technique from Jeff Bezos, and it's improving decision-making standards at Honasa."
She added, "Our goal is to be one of the market's most consumer-conscious companies. Would you make different decisions if your consumers were in the room?"
Since being shared, her post has amassed a lot of reactions online.
"Wow! That just makes so much sense. Customer obsession at its peak !" said a person.
A user added, "I appreciate your efforts to satisfy a customer as a consumer it is indeed a great move towards the sustainability."
"While I appreciate the idea of keeping a chair empty to represent the consumer, I think it's essential to involve real customers in the decision-making process to get genuine feedback and avoid making assumptions," commented a third user.
Another added, "It is great that you make one seat available for consumers, even if it is imaginary, but the employees who stand should be offered that seat."
"Very hard to make an unfavorable decision against consumers when that special chair is there. It's more like a conscience keeper. Wonder why people are not getting it," remarked a person.
"Ghazal Alagh The concept is good, but I am still wondering how keeping the chair 'empty', would make any impact? What stops you from going 1 step ahead and filling that chair up?" added another LinkedIn user.
After several users pointed out that this approach does not give consumer feedback, Mamaearth co-founder and Ms Alagh's husband Varun Alagh said, "To everyone who is talking about consumer not being able to give feedback and mocking this approach, let me share an analogy. Do you believe in god and its role in helping us humans live a morally correct life? We all believe in its presence all around us which makes us think about right and wrong. God never personally gives feedback on the same but the belief of presence is enough to make you do the right things."
He added, "This approach that Ghazal Alagh talks about is based on the same insight that if you imagine your consumer/customer was watching you make your decisions most likely you will take better decisions."
