A pretty kind gesture

WHEN the movement control order came into force in March, Nedda Bakhtiary, owner of the hair salon Prettify Dot Com Sdn Bhd, was worried about the longevity of her business.

Even when salons were allowed to resume business in early June, her shop located in Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur was hardly a crowd-puller any more.

“Almost 90% of my customers were international tourists. But this was no longer the case as the country’s border had closed.

“It was then I thought that I needed to come up with a strategy to turn my business around, ” she said.

Nedda said many hair salons increased their prices to make up for the losses incurred during the MCO, but she decided to go another way.

She began offering free services including haircut, hair washing and colouring to frontliners.

“I posted on our Instagram account that we are doing a free service for frontliners and that they have to message us to book an appointment.

“We’ve received good response from them, especially the women, who were very pleased with our service.

“Some came with colleagues while a few came with their mothers. Several even came in their uniform!

“They passed word about this salon to their friends and that helped to promote our business, ” she said.

Nedda started thinking of a new strategy to promote her salon after business slumped following the MCO. — LOW LAY PHON/The Star

Nedda confessed that some salon owners were sceptical of her business approach.

“They said that I would incur losses. But overall, it has been a positive experience.

“We have to appreciate the frontliners who are risking their life in the fight against Covid-19, ” she said, adding that she also received customers from other states such as Perak and Penang.

Nedda said that safety and cleanliness at the premises were of paramount importance.

“We limit customers to only three people at a time as each session can take between two to three hours.

“Workers wear aprons and disposable gloves when attending to customers.

“The tables, chairs and equipment are sanitised frequently, ” she said.

Nedda said she had not yet set an end date for her frontliners project, despite initially planning for it to be only for two months.

“We have received such good response, so I decided to run it throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, ” she said.