Hidden costs
Everything gets expensive, and faster than you might like. But what many in our industry don’t have in mind are hidden costs, so-called imputed costs. And these can be considerable…
The initial situation
As a tattoo artist or piercer, you can basically find yourself in two different situations:
- You have more work than time or
- You have more time than work
Unfortunately, the golden mean is far too rare an exception. But that’s just a side note.
More work than time?
Let’s assume you belong to group a), then your own working time is worth money. For example, if you spend an hour in the evening after your last appointment taking orders, cleaning the store, filing consent forms and answering inquiries, you will incur imputed costs: namely your usual hourly rate (e.g. €130). Because in this one hour you could actually have tattooed as well. Unless, of course, filing, ordering and cleaning are so satisfying for you that you don’t want to miss out.
Let’s also assume that you do this more or less every evening, 5 days a week. After deducting VAT and some materials from your hourly rate, this one hour in the evening generates imputed costs of around €2,000 per month.
More time than work?
If your calendar isn’t completely full, you don’t have this problem, of course. It’s the other way around for you: everything you don’t do that could potentially bring you more customers is lost revenue for you: responding to inquiries at short notice, maintaining your FB/Insta profile, Tiktok, your own website, Google presence, advertising…
Saving at the wrong end
If you belong to group a), i.e. you have more work than time, then you should get support (e.g. a part-time employee) or simplify or automate processes (digital filing, inquiry forms, online booking, …). This will undoubtedly mean obligations or conversion work at first. But it pays off in the long run. Because you simply have more money in your pocket for the same working time.
If you belong to group b), i.e. you have more time than work, then you should get professional help and/or tools to help you fill your calendar. This is also easier said than done (who or what is really good here?). But doing nothing is certainly a mistake.
In concrete terms
Appointment reminders and no-shows
We did a test in our studio and deactivated our automatic appointment reminders for three days only. With 4 artists present in our studio during this time, we had 3 no-shows in these 3 days. We normally have that many no-shows in a quarter. This is because the appointment reminders mean that fewer appointments are forgotten or canceled in good time.
- Saved by not sending appointment reminders: approx. € 0.90
- Lost turnover: approx. 800,- €
Online booking
A kisscal customer of ours received two last-minute appointment cancellations for one of her tattoo artists. However, she was so busy herself that she couldn’t arrange alternative appointments. Overnight, however, a new booking came in via her online booking for that day. Fully automatically. That was €400 in revenue that would otherwise have been lost.
Circular letter
We use automated circulars in our studio for last-minute appointment cancellations: We offer all customers who have an appointment with this artist in the next 14 days the opportunity to come earlier. Customers will find the link to the online booking in the email/SMS.
Someone can and always wants to. The appointment that becomes free later fills up all by itself thanks to our online booking. Total effort: approx. 1 minute.
Outsourcing to the customer
The online booking has a nice side effect: the customers enter the customer data including email address, cell phone number, information about the project and pictures for you.
Digital customer folders
We manage everything digitally and in one system: customer data, information about the tattoos including pictures, appointments, guest spots, convention dates, deposits, waiting lists, blacklists, declarations of consent and much more. This saves us all the paper, printer toner, file folders, space for the file folders and of course all the paperwork and filing every evening. And please don’t forget: We also completely save ourselves the time of having to search for any of it. One click, everything is there.
CRM
When my studio cell phone rings, I can already see who is calling on the display. While I’m answering, I call the customer in kisscal and greet them as follows, for example: “Hello Rebecca, Lemmi here from Into The Light, what can I do for you? Are you calling about your appointment with Jannine next week?” That always gives a wow effect!
Our system automatically recognizes unfinished tattoos from customers who have no appointments (missed appointments due to illness, appointments abroad, etc.). We also automatically contact them when there are free appointments with the artist in question. We also inform regular customers when guest artists are in the house again. In short: nobody is forgotten.
As a result, we are not only faster in processing inquiries. We also give our customers the feeling that we work in a truly professional manner and that no one is forgotten. And this impression is automatically reflected in the customer’s perception of issues such as hygiene and the quality of the work.
Costs
Whether such a system costs me €40, €90 or €150 per month is irrelevant compared to the savings (imputed costs) and positive effects (additional sales).
Yours
