Hightail Hair is a spandex hair pocket that mounts to a helmet, allowing riders to protect their hair quickly and easily. The innovative pocket design creates a protected space for hair, without binding or keeping it close to the wearer’s head, shielding the hair from the elements and breakage. Hightail stays fixed to the helmet too, so hair can be quickly tucked into the pocket. No tangles, no hassle.
This handy invention is the brainchild of Jon Dazeley and Jen Burch. Now based in Sydney, Australia, Jon hails from New Zealand and Jen from the United States. The couple met in 2013 after Jon was sent to the US office of the engineering company he worked for in Australia. After much convincing, Jen, who served active duty as a naval officer in the US Navy, made the move to Australia in 2014.
“With a shared love for motorcycles, we started looking for potential business opportunities based around their passion. With more and more women riding motorcycles, I quickly identified a common problem shared with female bikers around the world – trying to keep our hair untangled” Jen says.
The game changer came when Jon and Jen decided to create a helmet-mounted solution. They acted quickly, patenting the unique concept and creating a prototype. After finalising the design, they engaged with plastic moulding companies, packaging manufacturers and sewing companies to produce the final product. The process took two years, with the launch finally scheduled for spring 2020.
Hightail Hair was launched amidst a raging global pandemic, providing further logistical barriers and challenges. However, the business has shown great promise since its launch date and the company now has websites and fulfilment centres in the USA, Australia, Canada and Europe.
“Hightail is a new concept that new customers are unfamiliar with” says Jon.
“Explaining the product and showing validation from other customers is essential to gain trust. We have been very fortunate with early rave reviews and we needed to leverage these as quickly as possible. HelpfulCrowd has made it easy for us to manage the reviews and the reminder emails have made it easy for customers to respond.
“One of the biggest advantages of using HelpfulCrowd has been collecting more verified reviews that essentially endorse our products and create trust. The Store Review Syndication feature (UGC Sync™) has been a godsend for the launch of our new stores in Canada and Europe. We’re a single product business, so the ability to share verified reviews seamlessly across all of our stores was very important, especially early on when we do not have reviews on the new stores.”
A word of advice
“For anyone seeking out a customer review solution, do your homework” advises Jen.
Make sure the review app you use is cost effective, reliable and has the features you want and need. Check out their positive and negative reviews and see how they deal with complaints. That can be particularly telling. I’d also recommend making sure you can automate and customise review requests with manual overrides.
Once you start collecting reviews, don’t take them for granted. Respond to your customers, thank them for their feedback and share across your social media channels – after asking the customer’s permission of course.”
Learn more about Hightail
Follow Hightail on Instagram or like their page on Facebook.
You can also visit their stores in the United States, Australia, Canada, and Europe.
