Many studios are running out of customers, artists and/or costs. Full calendars are only possible with satisfied customers, who in turn expect good service. But how do you pay good service staff when the artists are already moaning at space rents > €500 per month?
Be quick, be the first
In addition, your response time also plays a role in the increasing competition. First strikes, first wins. It seems almost impossible to do justice to everyone. But it is possible.
We would like to show you here how you can reduce your time and effort for tattoo requests to 30 seconds, right down to the booked appointment:
1) 24/7 online availability for tattoo inquiries
Your customers are no different to you: You usually only have time for private matters when all the stores are closed. So make life easier for you and your customers and offer an online request form for their tattoo wishes.
Ideally, you should make sure that you get all the information you need for an offer (motif, style, size, body part, skin type, image templates, cover-up, etc.).
2) Answer at short notice and don’t forget anyone
Create message templates for the most important processes, e.g:
“Thank you very much for your request. The motif would be something for our … You should expect the costs to be around xxx €. If that suits you, please book an X-hour appointment with us…”
Get into the habit of always answering all inquiries, at least in the morning and evening. With these text templates, it only takes a few simple steps for each inquiry. Because it’s always the same: either you send an offer (as outlined above) or one of these messages:
“Thank you very much for your request. We would be happy to implement this with you. But we still need a little more information before we can make you an offer: … “
“… We would like to implement this with you. Would you like to come by for a consultation so that we can clarify all the details? …”
“… We would love to do this with you, but we can’t offer you any dates at the moment. But if you like, we would be happy to put you on our waiting list…”
“…Unfortunately, we can’t help you with your tattoo request…”
Make a note of when you sent what to whom (especially prizes!) so that you don’t forget anyone and don’t lose track.
3) Let customers book online
Now give the customer the opportunity to book the appointment online. After all, the offer he/she received from you contains everything he/she needs to know:
“… The motif would be something for our … book an X-hour appointment …”
If your working hours, vacations and all appointments are stored in your calendar, this is no problem today. Depending on the system, you can even specify for each type of appointment (meeting, tattoo, touch-up, …) on which days or at what times they can be booked.
The effect is enormous, for you and your customers:
- For you, the process is completed once the offer has been sent. The customers then book the appointments themselves (usually when you get off work).
- Your customers can book at home and choose a suitable date. No more “Sorry, that’s not possible” ping-pong! Good systems also offer the option of transferring a down payment/appointment deposit. The customer doesn’t have to come to you for this.
- Follow-up: If you want, use your list from point 2 and follow up on all requests that have not yet been booked after 3-4 days. 😉
And if a customer actually books something that doesn’t fit, you can simply delete the appointment and of course have the right message template for it:
“Thank you very much for your booking. Unfortunately, we cannot fulfill your tattoo request and would have to cancel the appointment. If that’s OK for you, why don’t you book an X-hour appointment with … “
Avoids manual work and duplicate lists
If you now work with a calendar system in which the information and functions described above are integrated, you also save yourself the hassle of copying customer data, design descriptions and images back and forth. Then the answering of your tattoo inquiries up to the booked appointment really only consists of the following steps:
- Call up and view offers received and specify artist, price and duration.
(Possibly ask the artist about the price, e.g. via WhatsApp) - Offer (or other response) to the customer
- Match booked appointments with the offer
Yes, that’s it.
Automates as much as possible
This principle can be applied to many tasks in studio management:
- Short-term appointment cancellations
Write to all customers of the same artist who have a similarly long appointment in the coming days/weeks and ask if they can/would like to come earlier. - Artist sick, postpone appointments for 1 week
Write to all affected customers, say you are sorry and offer them the opportunity to book a replacement appointment online. - Guest artist back
Write to all customers who have been with him/her in the last 12 months and invite them to book another appointment with the artist.
With the right system, all these actions can be completed in 1 minute, including the postponement of an entire week!
Efficiency is a competitive advantage
The more efficient your store management is, the lower your costs will be while providing the same or even better service to your customers. And the lower your costs, the cheaper you can rent out your spaces while maintaining or improving your profit margin.
Everything live in our free webinar
On Mon. Feb. 3, 2025 at 3:00 p.m. we are offering our next free webinar on the topic of “Automation & more service”, where you can watch the methods described here live. If you are interested, simply register online here:
Yours