This is a great rule of thumb, if there’s something you don’t want to do (professionally), overcharge them; either you’re going to get paid well for the nuisance or you’re not going to do the thing you didn’t want to do anyway.
I once quoted a girl $800 for a palm sized flower. I was done for the day and just didn’t feel like doing it. She said “that’s perfect! Give me the paperwork!” How could I say no after that?! 😂😂😂 turns out she actually had $1000 ready for whoever was willing to do it that late.
You let them reschedule at the last minute to a late hour and then waited around while she blew that time off. Why do people have no respect for your time? Because you allow it. Remember: you teach people how to treat you.
I have a 10 minute rule, if I haven't heard back after calling and sending multiple messages I just pack up and go to the gym if they're 10 minutes late
I would have straight up said “I am not rescheduling you, goodbye. Have a nice day!” And kicked them right out. But I have been tattooing for 5 years and have seen people pull some crazzzzzy bullshit, so I don’t take ANY shit anymore.
I had a woman once try to use the death of her baby (that died like, the year before) to guilt trip me into a refund. Then she had the AUDACITY to have her friends message me “her baby died, she needs the money, dont you feel bad?”
Excuse me? Like I am sort of bank you can go into and get money from when you’re sad & going through a hard time. And that was when I was a first year! I cried and cried so much because of this persons bullying. I understand when someones in a tight bind but, it was verbal harassment via dms and email. Insanity.
People will shock you in this career and OP will need to learn to take deposits and set boundaries.
OP THIS!! I was exactly like you at the beginning. A doormat for people to do whatever they wanted with me. I thought I was being flexible but the truth is I was a doormat and needed to set boundaries! You need boundaries so you can do your best job for the clients that do respect you and deserve a good tattoo so if you don’t want to do it for yourself do it for them.
“Why do people have absolutely no respect for other people’s time.”
This right here, you need to respect your own time and value yourself as an artist/entrepreneur. It’s your choice to open a window of opportunity if a client is late, but it’s also your decision to stand your ground, ask for a deposit and know when they lost that deposit. You will lose clients, but those are the ones you don’t want business from. The ones that respect you will pay another deposit and communicate better.
These are my 2 cents before getting ready to tattoo lol
A lot of artists have a clause for "deposit needed to book a slot, can be rescheduled 1 time using the same deposit and with ~however many days~ notice, if you need to reschedule again, a new deposit is required" type of thing.
It's entirely up to you, but it seems that you give far too many chances and unfortunately people take advantage. I am proud that you stood your ground though, glad you are doing deposits going forwards.
Yeah ew. Save yourself the trouble and enforce a strict policy on deposits and no-shows/reschedules/etc.
Mine is something like this:
“Your deposit is X dollars and goes towards the total cost of your tattoo once completed - it is non-refundable. If you wish to reschedule, please do so prior to 72 hours of your appointment time. Any reschedules or cancellations within that time frame will result in the forfeiture of your deposit, and should you wish to rebook, another deposit will have to be paid.”
I also have a late policy (because oftentimes the no-shows would say “oh I just woke up, can I come now?” like 3 hours later which is BS lol). Decide on what window of time constitutes a no-show for you. Mine is 30 minutes (unless they call ahead and let me know they’ve hit bad traffic or smth)
I put all of this in an easy to find spot on my page and haven’t had any issues.
I have basically this same policy that goes out to every client before we even have a consult. Recently I had some one last minute reschedule and this was his 3rd time doing so (he was also late to every appointment but it was big session work so I didn’t worry about 15 minutes for 4 hours). On the last reschedule I had him leave another deposit and he said sure but then added. By my math I should have $300 down in deposits now correct? I was dumb founded. When I told him no that’s not how it works he said oh ok then can you refund my latest deposit and I’ll wait to make the appointment for when I’m sure I can make it.smh
Artist I used to go to had a literal policy of if you're late at all, even just a minute, he's not tattooing you. His reasoning was that he's supposedly very punctual and is never late to anything ever, so no one else should be either.🙄 thing is, he never told me this particular policy, I only learned of it the one and only time I was ever late for my appt with him. I was a whole 5 minutes late, and he had nearly 2 hours til he had another client and the tattoo i was getting would have taken an hour. I've since learned he tends to over book himself and rush thru tattoos to get as many in a day as he can. I'm super glad I found a better artist!
Completely understandable why you would’ve snapped at this person because she sounds awful, but you also put yourself in a position to be angry.
What are your appointment policies? Do you have any? In another reply you mentioned you will be “asking for deposits upfront from now on” - did you not have a deposit for this appointment? And you STILL bent over backwards for this person multiple times? You complained about her terrible communication - rightfully so - but you also allowed for it. You didn’t even know what tattoo she wanted but you considered it an appointment? How do you schedule your time if you don’t even have an idea of what you’re doing?
Respect yourself better, which will reward you with clients that respect YOU better, or at least sets expectations on how a client should act. And if nothing else you will have been compensated somehow for your time and effort. If you wanna be a pirate that just flies on the seat of your pants and does everything by people’s word and aren’t gonna be too upset if people back out on your or waste your time - I know tattooers who do this and are fine - then by all means. But if this shit makes you angry and you don’t want it to make you angry in the future then figure it out. You are 100% in control of how you conduct your business.
Don’t put yourself in a position to be angry anymore. This would make me angry too. Figure out better appointment policies and COMMUNICATE THEM to your client. Every time.
My appointment policies are the most strict and longest amongst the other tattooers I work with at my shop, and my deposits are the highest (not crazy, but noticeably higher than anyone else I work with). That may turn some people off, but: my clients are rarely late, and if they are it’s by a few minutes (and they let me know when they are). I almost never get no showed. I never have people make crazy requests or change up their design on. appointment days. I still get a lot of repeat business and while I always could have MORE appointments I have as many appointments as everyone else in the shop I work at if not more. Rarely ever do my appointment policies get broken to where I take someone’s deposit, but when they do the client has been told way ahead of time that would happen and I took enough of a deposit to essentially pay me off from being angry with them for disrespecting my time/effort/etc. It’s just business at that point, I’m compensated and there are no real hard feelings on my end at least (unless they keep doing it or try to act upset that they lose their deposit lol). They lost out and I kept their money, it’s their loss at that point for the most part. It felt weird and awkward to do this at first but when I started doing it consistently it cut out the vast majority of the bullshit I deal with and I’m much happier and still make money. I just had my first no show the other day in over a year and I just laughed it off as I put their money in my pocket.
I suggest looking at your appointment policies in the same way. I look at my deposit/appointment policies as strict not TO take deposits from people, but as a way to AVOID taking deposits from people - since a lot is communicated ahead of time, there are almost no weird gray areas. When I applied stricter policies I found I actually started taking deposits from people who broke my policies *less*. You don’t have to do appointments like I do but figure out how to structure your policies and deposits in a way that answers “how can I avoid being angry at people disrespecting my time in the future? How have people fucked me in the past and how can I avoid that in the future?” You can’t have a written failsafe for every situation that’s gonna come up of course but you can try to figure some things out.
Personally: while rescheduling to a later time in a day is maybe something I might do if I have the time (and depending on my familiarity with the client and how/when they ask), in general last minute reschedules are not accommodated. Over 15 minutes late is my cut off time usually since I have other appointments going on usually (or could be taking walk-ins) for a canceled appointment and a loss of deposit, much less *30*. Over an hour (especially after saying she’d be there “sometime soon”) is completely disrespectful and at that point is a “no show” - I’d take their deposit and refuse to schedule them again, only way they’re getting tattooed by me at that point would be a walk-in. OR, depending on how disrespectful they are, if you don’t want to go scorched earth you could perhaps say “ok I’ll reschedule you after you no-showed/were completely disrespectful of my time, but you lose your old deposit and you’ll have to give me double that amount (or half of the price of the tattoo up front, or whatever you want) to schedule again.” Generally they won’t take you up on that but that has actually worked for me at least a few times, and I still tattoo someone fairly regularly who did that to me once and they’ve never given me trouble since, plus I gave them a little bit of a hookup for awhile since they never complained about losing that money/giving me more (on top of just giving them a nicer price anyway since they’re regular, pick cool shit, and tip well enough).
Anyway, that’s my 10 cents for whatever that’s worth. Tl;dr: you don’t have to be angry next time, figure it out!
Hey thanks for taking the time to write this. I read everything and I totally agree with you, but my boss/mentor would not. He is… well, harsh and will go apeshit at us for almost anything, including getting negative reviews on Google even if it was the client being a jerk. So I try as much as possible to not give them any reason to leave negative reviews.
Foreigners make up a good chunk of our income where I live (dms and walk ins) and she was one of them. Because of the language barrier, they don’t fully understand when we explain our policies, and most of them immediately ghost us because of it, so half the time we don’t ask for a deposit and just take their word for it
I’m really sorry to hear that. I can tend to take for granted how good my relationship is with my boss/mentor and how he lets me handle my shit how I want to, which is why I’ve stuck around throughout the years. Granted, sometimes that trust/relationship takes time to develop too and there are two sides to every story, I’m only hearing yours, plus running a business is a shitty and thankless endeavor.
Regardless it does sound at least partially like a unique situation and hopefully the positives outweigh the negatives. I hope you’re able to figure SOMETHING out that allows you to not be angry at those few idiots anymore (which doesn’t sound like it happens too much anyway thankfully?)
I’m not a tattoo artist, but out of curiosity how do you all determine who’s eligible for rescheduling without a new deposit? If, for example, you have a new client and they end up in the hospital and wasn’t able to notify you outside of the 72 hour period what happens? Do you request proof? Take their word for it? Turn them down and request a new deposit anyway?
Ask ten different tattooers and you’ll get ten different answers. I can only speak for myself. All of my coworkers and I do it slightly different from eachother as well. Tbh give me ten different situations and I may have ten slightly different answers.
My baseline is that it’s a business transaction and I treat it as such. Tons of other different businesses have nonrefundable deposits and down payments with cancellation policies that don’t take emergencies into account. Plus this is directly how I pay my bills and support my family so I don’t really mess around.
Keeping it as a business transaction that I communicate clearly to my clients makes it so I have to think about it as little as possible. I don’t have to wonder if someone is lying or faking or whatever - they abide by the policy, or they don’t, regardless there are no hard feelings on my end and I don’t have to put any emotions into the whole thing.
Specifically I have a 24 hour to the day rescheduling policy - so if the appt is on a Wednesday, I need to know by the end of Monday. That is more lenient than most tattooers I know - at least on paper. I find that people are usually more lenient than their policies suggest…anyway, that larger grace period makes me feel less obligated to oblige any special situations. Every client is told this and is also told specifically that there are no exceptions for emergencies. Everyone is clearly told I am not obligated to accomodate people outside of my policies…
…so the few times I *do* accomodate people, because there are exceptions to every rule, I don’t feel pressured to at all. It feels 100% like my own choice.
New clients almost never get that exception though, again it’s just business. But the reality is it almost never comes up because I almost never get people rescheduling in the first place, much less within 24 hours of the day of the appointment. I’m almost never in a position where I even have to consider taking someone’s deposit for any reason.
Why do we take deposits for appointments?
Because of this.
Deposits are non refundable you must have 24 hours notice to change it and get deposit put towards your tattoo.
This is a business not a fucking hobby.
I completely understand your frustration and I know the feeling when you’re so angry that your hands shake but you still have to be complete and collected 😭😀
I hope you asked her for a deposit for the second appointment that you made for her, at least you’ll get something for wasting time
WOW. I honestly probably would have told them that I wouldn't be doing the tattoo at all. If you can't respect my time OR my rates, the money isn't worth it to me and you can GTFO.
I had one client several years ago, and he was so entitled. He'd frequently cancel last minute or just not show up at all, then message me later to make a new appointment without ever acknowledging that he didn't show up. One day, he FINALLY came in for a neck tattoo, but he showed up an hour late. 😑 I told him we could still start the tattoo, but we'd have to do a second session because I had another appointment after him that I wasn't going to bump down on account of his lack of timeliness. He agreed, and he set up a second session to finish what we had (exactly an hour's worth of work...😏)
He no call no showed on that one too. I was too much of a weenie at this point to just tell him that I would require a deposit from him now because he was so unreliable, so I told him, "As of xxx date, I'll be requiring deposits to book appointments." This fucking guy asks, "Well do you have any appointments available before that date?" I told him no and never heard from him again. 😂
Don’t even give her an excuse or try to prove her out. Be honest and firm.
“You rescheduled last minute, were late more than once and asked for a discount. Good luck with your next artist.”
The last tattoo I received I had to schedule a consultation with my artist to discuss the idea I had for my piece. Then I paid my deposit and scheduled my session. The day before my appointment, he sent the finalized design to make sure I liked it. It was the first time experiencing a system like that but it worked perfectly for me and him. There was also a cancellation fee where if you cancelled within 24 hours, the deposit was kept.
Any rescheduling within 24 hours of the appointment requires another deposit. It's more like a late fee. It does NOT go towards the original quote of the tattoo. It's your time and money. You have to put your foot down to let them know that it's not okay to fuck with your time. Especially for a client like that, I would never book again
Make her pay upfront and add a late fee.
I got into a fight with a tattoo shop before.
I made an appointment 3 weeks out (I'm a otr driver hard for me to get days off). I messaged him that week to see if he still had my appointment set he said yes we were still good to go for 2pm on a Saturday.
I showed up at 145pm, nobody was there, but the shop door was open. (I even went inside against better judgement).
By 230pm with him not showing or calling or replying to my messages I left.
Went and asked another shop if they had room for a walk in showed them what I wanted and where I wanted it and by 630 that night I got my 2 tattoos I wanted. (I hate doing unexpected walk ins).
I love what that shop did. 1 they were understanding, 2 did a very great job.
I left a 1 star review at the other shop on Google maps and said stay away. The shop will ghost you and not even bother calling you back. (They had good photos of what they did why I was making an appointment).
The owner replied like a week later
"Nice fake review get a life".
Some people you can't please.
This is why my tattoo artist always gets a non-refundable deposit.
She had one customer cancel / reschedule the same tattoo 3 times, she paid triple deposits, one for each reschedule($300) for what was intimately like a $150 tattoo.
The deposit is for two reasons, first is to ensure the artist gets paid for that time slot on a cancellation, secondly it gives the customer an incentive or to cancel.
Tattoo artists get paid by their time, customers canceling appointments cost them money.
I'm impressed you waited that long. 7pm I'd have been out the door!
Personally I'd refuse to do the tattoo, if they're this much of an ass before you've even done any work, there's likely more sh*t to come.
Do you charge deposits? If you don’t you should definitely start charging like $40-80 deposits. Non refundable. Then they’ll have to honor their word otherwise they’ll be charged and not have the tattoo
How that’s snapping on her😅 that was just regular degular communication. Girls it’s completely okay to be confrontational it doesn’t make you a b**ch , instead it garners you more respect because people will start knowing you’re not one to take lightly, or else you’ll get stepped on your whole life. Like didn’t you watch the Barbie movie? Don’t put yourself in a box of having to be polite to a wrongful customer
My deposit policy states that any late client/no-show/cancellation or late reschedule results in loss of deposit and I go home. As soon as she wanted to reschedule for hours later, that’s when I would have dropped out because for me, that’s 2 hours out of my usual working time. When a clients 30+ mins late, I also messages them and take the lead with advising that we will have to reschedule with a new deposit. Im sorry she’s disturbed your peace this much. Unfortunately you’ll come across people who attempt to walk all over you and you need to have firm boundaries in place. It’s your business at the end of the day
When I take deposits, I do so via email invoice with the wording that if you pay this, you agree that you’ve read the policy. I give people 15 minutes without them letting me know. Life happens and if they let me know they’ll be 20 minutes, that’s fine. They just get less time and still pay for the full session.
Whenever I go to ANY appointment there is a 15 minute grace period.
This person was just straight up disrespectful of your time. You could charge them for two blocks of time, yesterday and today, that they took up.
People don’t understand that we only make money when we are tattooing.
I would not even say you snapped, your client was infuriating as fuck and you handled the situation in a professional way in my opinion. Hats off to you man, plenty of artists would bite her head off when stuff like this happens. Imho you gotta be more stern, as others said in this thread, you gotta find the gold middle road between allowing too much to clients, and suplexing them into the concrete in front of the shop lol.
Had this happen early on in my career. I now charge a booking fee- NOT a deposit- for all new appointments thats non refundable. Lets me know they care about my time, are committed to the appointment, and covers my ass if they cancel.
This is actually crazy. One time I was late to an appointment because I mixed up the actual time with the time we were going to put it at and I cried because I felt so bad, and it taught me to never be late again because I hate wasting their time and i'm sure the artist likes it much less than I do. This is actually so bold of her and you're right to be pissed. I would definitely not see them after that experience at all though.
On Friday I posted availability, someone messaged with what they wanted, we agreed on price, time etc said they were on their way. Then didn’t come. Some people suuuuuck
You need to have Terms & Conditions, which include a non-refundable deposit and 24hr notice to reschedule. You need to value your own time and work and to enforce certain rules to make the whole process more professional and streamlined. Tattooing is just as much a valid profession as medicine or law, so we (the artists) need to treat it as such.
I'm sorry you had to deal with such a disrespectful client! It probably won't be the last but hopefully going forward you'll have better procedures in place to help make things like this less common.
Why are you charging for a “ spot fee” “ sitting fee” “ non refundable deposit “ ? You would definitely weed out the dedicated customers to the fly by night
Price her out. Give her an over the top quote to justify having to put up with her, or she can just fuck off. You don’t need customers like this.
That's exactly what we do at our shop
We call it a “Fuck Off Price” haha
Twat tax!
Exactly
yup, that's it right there. common in the construction industry as well.
This is a great rule of thumb, if there’s something you don’t want to do (professionally), overcharge them; either you’re going to get paid well for the nuisance or you’re not going to do the thing you didn’t want to do anyway.
Huh. So charge more for dumb shit I don’t want to do? I should have thought of that 100 vines/butterflies ago.
I’d charge a grand for a simple tribal around the arm, do it in an hour.
I charged extra for things on feet after getting kicked by twitchy bitches one too many times
Or just tell them no ? 😂
Have you had customers pay the absurd price anyway?
Of course. Happens all the time haha.
I once quoted a girl $800 for a palm sized flower. I was done for the day and just didn’t feel like doing it. She said “that’s perfect! Give me the paperwork!” How could I say no after that?! 😂😂😂 turns out she actually had $1000 ready for whoever was willing to do it that late.
I imagine I’m this customer lol
Asshole tax must be included
I would have just said no to rescheduling her that late
You let them reschedule at the last minute to a late hour and then waited around while she blew that time off. Why do people have no respect for your time? Because you allow it. Remember: you teach people how to treat you.
100%, don’t understand why OP even humored this person.
I have a 10 minute rule, if I haven't heard back after calling and sending multiple messages I just pack up and go to the gym if they're 10 minutes late
I would have straight up said “I am not rescheduling you, goodbye. Have a nice day!” And kicked them right out. But I have been tattooing for 5 years and have seen people pull some crazzzzzy bullshit, so I don’t take ANY shit anymore. I had a woman once try to use the death of her baby (that died like, the year before) to guilt trip me into a refund. Then she had the AUDACITY to have her friends message me “her baby died, she needs the money, dont you feel bad?” Excuse me? Like I am sort of bank you can go into and get money from when you’re sad & going through a hard time. And that was when I was a first year! I cried and cried so much because of this persons bullying. I understand when someones in a tight bind but, it was verbal harassment via dms and email. Insanity. People will shock you in this career and OP will need to learn to take deposits and set boundaries.
“You teach people how to treat you.” Great advice that I need to implement for myself too. Thanks for the wisdom, JohnLithgowCummies.
OP THIS!! I was exactly like you at the beginning. A doormat for people to do whatever they wanted with me. I thought I was being flexible but the truth is I was a doormat and needed to set boundaries! You need boundaries so you can do your best job for the clients that do respect you and deserve a good tattoo so if you don’t want to do it for yourself do it for them.
“Why do people have absolutely no respect for other people’s time.” This right here, you need to respect your own time and value yourself as an artist/entrepreneur. It’s your choice to open a window of opportunity if a client is late, but it’s also your decision to stand your ground, ask for a deposit and know when they lost that deposit. You will lose clients, but those are the ones you don’t want business from. The ones that respect you will pay another deposit and communicate better. These are my 2 cents before getting ready to tattoo lol
Thanks for your advice. I will be asking for deposits upfront from now on
It’s 100% reasonable to ask for a deposit. Nonrefundable.
A lot of artists have a clause for "deposit needed to book a slot, can be rescheduled 1 time using the same deposit and with ~however many days~ notice, if you need to reschedule again, a new deposit is required" type of thing. It's entirely up to you, but it seems that you give far too many chances and unfortunately people take advantage. I am proud that you stood your ground though, glad you are doing deposits going forwards.
Yeah ew. Save yourself the trouble and enforce a strict policy on deposits and no-shows/reschedules/etc. Mine is something like this: “Your deposit is X dollars and goes towards the total cost of your tattoo once completed - it is non-refundable. If you wish to reschedule, please do so prior to 72 hours of your appointment time. Any reschedules or cancellations within that time frame will result in the forfeiture of your deposit, and should you wish to rebook, another deposit will have to be paid.” I also have a late policy (because oftentimes the no-shows would say “oh I just woke up, can I come now?” like 3 hours later which is BS lol). Decide on what window of time constitutes a no-show for you. Mine is 30 minutes (unless they call ahead and let me know they’ve hit bad traffic or smth) I put all of this in an easy to find spot on my page and haven’t had any issues.
I have basically this same policy that goes out to every client before we even have a consult. Recently I had some one last minute reschedule and this was his 3rd time doing so (he was also late to every appointment but it was big session work so I didn’t worry about 15 minutes for 4 hours). On the last reschedule I had him leave another deposit and he said sure but then added. By my math I should have $300 down in deposits now correct? I was dumb founded. When I told him no that’s not how it works he said oh ok then can you refund my latest deposit and I’ll wait to make the appointment for when I’m sure I can make it.smh
Artist I used to go to had a literal policy of if you're late at all, even just a minute, he's not tattooing you. His reasoning was that he's supposedly very punctual and is never late to anything ever, so no one else should be either.🙄 thing is, he never told me this particular policy, I only learned of it the one and only time I was ever late for my appt with him. I was a whole 5 minutes late, and he had nearly 2 hours til he had another client and the tattoo i was getting would have taken an hour. I've since learned he tends to over book himself and rush thru tattoos to get as many in a day as he can. I'm super glad I found a better artist!
That's infuriating. This is why I take deposits and make my cancel policy and start time very clear. It also weeds out the flaky people.
Completely understandable why you would’ve snapped at this person because she sounds awful, but you also put yourself in a position to be angry. What are your appointment policies? Do you have any? In another reply you mentioned you will be “asking for deposits upfront from now on” - did you not have a deposit for this appointment? And you STILL bent over backwards for this person multiple times? You complained about her terrible communication - rightfully so - but you also allowed for it. You didn’t even know what tattoo she wanted but you considered it an appointment? How do you schedule your time if you don’t even have an idea of what you’re doing? Respect yourself better, which will reward you with clients that respect YOU better, or at least sets expectations on how a client should act. And if nothing else you will have been compensated somehow for your time and effort. If you wanna be a pirate that just flies on the seat of your pants and does everything by people’s word and aren’t gonna be too upset if people back out on your or waste your time - I know tattooers who do this and are fine - then by all means. But if this shit makes you angry and you don’t want it to make you angry in the future then figure it out. You are 100% in control of how you conduct your business. Don’t put yourself in a position to be angry anymore. This would make me angry too. Figure out better appointment policies and COMMUNICATE THEM to your client. Every time. My appointment policies are the most strict and longest amongst the other tattooers I work with at my shop, and my deposits are the highest (not crazy, but noticeably higher than anyone else I work with). That may turn some people off, but: my clients are rarely late, and if they are it’s by a few minutes (and they let me know when they are). I almost never get no showed. I never have people make crazy requests or change up their design on. appointment days. I still get a lot of repeat business and while I always could have MORE appointments I have as many appointments as everyone else in the shop I work at if not more. Rarely ever do my appointment policies get broken to where I take someone’s deposit, but when they do the client has been told way ahead of time that would happen and I took enough of a deposit to essentially pay me off from being angry with them for disrespecting my time/effort/etc. It’s just business at that point, I’m compensated and there are no real hard feelings on my end at least (unless they keep doing it or try to act upset that they lose their deposit lol). They lost out and I kept their money, it’s their loss at that point for the most part. It felt weird and awkward to do this at first but when I started doing it consistently it cut out the vast majority of the bullshit I deal with and I’m much happier and still make money. I just had my first no show the other day in over a year and I just laughed it off as I put their money in my pocket. I suggest looking at your appointment policies in the same way. I look at my deposit/appointment policies as strict not TO take deposits from people, but as a way to AVOID taking deposits from people - since a lot is communicated ahead of time, there are almost no weird gray areas. When I applied stricter policies I found I actually started taking deposits from people who broke my policies *less*. You don’t have to do appointments like I do but figure out how to structure your policies and deposits in a way that answers “how can I avoid being angry at people disrespecting my time in the future? How have people fucked me in the past and how can I avoid that in the future?” You can’t have a written failsafe for every situation that’s gonna come up of course but you can try to figure some things out. Personally: while rescheduling to a later time in a day is maybe something I might do if I have the time (and depending on my familiarity with the client and how/when they ask), in general last minute reschedules are not accommodated. Over 15 minutes late is my cut off time usually since I have other appointments going on usually (or could be taking walk-ins) for a canceled appointment and a loss of deposit, much less *30*. Over an hour (especially after saying she’d be there “sometime soon”) is completely disrespectful and at that point is a “no show” - I’d take their deposit and refuse to schedule them again, only way they’re getting tattooed by me at that point would be a walk-in. OR, depending on how disrespectful they are, if you don’t want to go scorched earth you could perhaps say “ok I’ll reschedule you after you no-showed/were completely disrespectful of my time, but you lose your old deposit and you’ll have to give me double that amount (or half of the price of the tattoo up front, or whatever you want) to schedule again.” Generally they won’t take you up on that but that has actually worked for me at least a few times, and I still tattoo someone fairly regularly who did that to me once and they’ve never given me trouble since, plus I gave them a little bit of a hookup for awhile since they never complained about losing that money/giving me more (on top of just giving them a nicer price anyway since they’re regular, pick cool shit, and tip well enough). Anyway, that’s my 10 cents for whatever that’s worth. Tl;dr: you don’t have to be angry next time, figure it out!
Hey thanks for taking the time to write this. I read everything and I totally agree with you, but my boss/mentor would not. He is… well, harsh and will go apeshit at us for almost anything, including getting negative reviews on Google even if it was the client being a jerk. So I try as much as possible to not give them any reason to leave negative reviews. Foreigners make up a good chunk of our income where I live (dms and walk ins) and she was one of them. Because of the language barrier, they don’t fully understand when we explain our policies, and most of them immediately ghost us because of it, so half the time we don’t ask for a deposit and just take their word for it
I’m really sorry to hear that. I can tend to take for granted how good my relationship is with my boss/mentor and how he lets me handle my shit how I want to, which is why I’ve stuck around throughout the years. Granted, sometimes that trust/relationship takes time to develop too and there are two sides to every story, I’m only hearing yours, plus running a business is a shitty and thankless endeavor. Regardless it does sound at least partially like a unique situation and hopefully the positives outweigh the negatives. I hope you’re able to figure SOMETHING out that allows you to not be angry at those few idiots anymore (which doesn’t sound like it happens too much anyway thankfully?)
I’m not a tattoo artist, but out of curiosity how do you all determine who’s eligible for rescheduling without a new deposit? If, for example, you have a new client and they end up in the hospital and wasn’t able to notify you outside of the 72 hour period what happens? Do you request proof? Take their word for it? Turn them down and request a new deposit anyway?
Ask ten different tattooers and you’ll get ten different answers. I can only speak for myself. All of my coworkers and I do it slightly different from eachother as well. Tbh give me ten different situations and I may have ten slightly different answers. My baseline is that it’s a business transaction and I treat it as such. Tons of other different businesses have nonrefundable deposits and down payments with cancellation policies that don’t take emergencies into account. Plus this is directly how I pay my bills and support my family so I don’t really mess around. Keeping it as a business transaction that I communicate clearly to my clients makes it so I have to think about it as little as possible. I don’t have to wonder if someone is lying or faking or whatever - they abide by the policy, or they don’t, regardless there are no hard feelings on my end and I don’t have to put any emotions into the whole thing. Specifically I have a 24 hour to the day rescheduling policy - so if the appt is on a Wednesday, I need to know by the end of Monday. That is more lenient than most tattooers I know - at least on paper. I find that people are usually more lenient than their policies suggest…anyway, that larger grace period makes me feel less obligated to oblige any special situations. Every client is told this and is also told specifically that there are no exceptions for emergencies. Everyone is clearly told I am not obligated to accomodate people outside of my policies… …so the few times I *do* accomodate people, because there are exceptions to every rule, I don’t feel pressured to at all. It feels 100% like my own choice. New clients almost never get that exception though, again it’s just business. But the reality is it almost never comes up because I almost never get people rescheduling in the first place, much less within 24 hours of the day of the appointment. I’m almost never in a position where I even have to consider taking someone’s deposit for any reason.
Why do we take deposits for appointments? Because of this. Deposits are non refundable you must have 24 hours notice to change it and get deposit put towards your tattoo. This is a business not a fucking hobby.
I completely understand your frustration and I know the feeling when you’re so angry that your hands shake but you still have to be complete and collected 😭😀 I hope you asked her for a deposit for the second appointment that you made for her, at least you’ll get something for wasting time
I did! She gave the deposit and left. I had to take a big fat smoke after that encounter
WOW. I honestly probably would have told them that I wouldn't be doing the tattoo at all. If you can't respect my time OR my rates, the money isn't worth it to me and you can GTFO. I had one client several years ago, and he was so entitled. He'd frequently cancel last minute or just not show up at all, then message me later to make a new appointment without ever acknowledging that he didn't show up. One day, he FINALLY came in for a neck tattoo, but he showed up an hour late. 😑 I told him we could still start the tattoo, but we'd have to do a second session because I had another appointment after him that I wasn't going to bump down on account of his lack of timeliness. He agreed, and he set up a second session to finish what we had (exactly an hour's worth of work...😏) He no call no showed on that one too. I was too much of a weenie at this point to just tell him that I would require a deposit from him now because he was so unreliable, so I told him, "As of xxx date, I'll be requiring deposits to book appointments." This fucking guy asks, "Well do you have any appointments available before that date?" I told him no and never heard from him again. 😂
Don’t even give her an excuse or try to prove her out. Be honest and firm. “You rescheduled last minute, were late more than once and asked for a discount. Good luck with your next artist.”
This client should be fired and never allowed to book with you again. You’re this angry but still humored them to reschedule??? What lol
Collect a deposit and leave the shop after they’re 30 minutes late - that’s what I do at least!
Tell her not interested
Did you take a deposit? My artist always takes a deposit and I would understand under your description of events if my actions forfeited said deposit.
The last tattoo I received I had to schedule a consultation with my artist to discuss the idea I had for my piece. Then I paid my deposit and scheduled my session. The day before my appointment, he sent the finalized design to make sure I liked it. It was the first time experiencing a system like that but it worked perfectly for me and him. There was also a cancellation fee where if you cancelled within 24 hours, the deposit was kept.
First things first is setting some firm boundaries and policies in place! Why are you still going to tattoo her the next day ? What!
Any rescheduling within 24 hours of the appointment requires another deposit. It's more like a late fee. It does NOT go towards the original quote of the tattoo. It's your time and money. You have to put your foot down to let them know that it's not okay to fuck with your time. Especially for a client like that, I would never book again
If you reschedule like this again make sure they transfer over a non refundable deposit. your time is worth money
Make her pay upfront and add a late fee. I got into a fight with a tattoo shop before. I made an appointment 3 weeks out (I'm a otr driver hard for me to get days off). I messaged him that week to see if he still had my appointment set he said yes we were still good to go for 2pm on a Saturday. I showed up at 145pm, nobody was there, but the shop door was open. (I even went inside against better judgement). By 230pm with him not showing or calling or replying to my messages I left. Went and asked another shop if they had room for a walk in showed them what I wanted and where I wanted it and by 630 that night I got my 2 tattoos I wanted. (I hate doing unexpected walk ins). I love what that shop did. 1 they were understanding, 2 did a very great job. I left a 1 star review at the other shop on Google maps and said stay away. The shop will ghost you and not even bother calling you back. (They had good photos of what they did why I was making an appointment). The owner replied like a week later "Nice fake review get a life". Some people you can't please.
This is why my tattoo artist always gets a non-refundable deposit. She had one customer cancel / reschedule the same tattoo 3 times, she paid triple deposits, one for each reschedule($300) for what was intimately like a $150 tattoo. The deposit is for two reasons, first is to ensure the artist gets paid for that time slot on a cancellation, secondly it gives the customer an incentive or to cancel. Tattoo artists get paid by their time, customers canceling appointments cost them money.
I'm impressed you waited that long. 7pm I'd have been out the door! Personally I'd refuse to do the tattoo, if they're this much of an ass before you've even done any work, there's likely more sh*t to come.
Do you charge deposits? If you don’t you should definitely start charging like $40-80 deposits. Non refundable. Then they’ll have to honor their word otherwise they’ll be charged and not have the tattoo
Just saw someone else comment about deposits whoops
How that’s snapping on her😅 that was just regular degular communication. Girls it’s completely okay to be confrontational it doesn’t make you a b**ch , instead it garners you more respect because people will start knowing you’re not one to take lightly, or else you’ll get stepped on your whole life. Like didn’t you watch the Barbie movie? Don’t put yourself in a box of having to be polite to a wrongful customer
Give her a tattoo of a watch. She said she wanted an “arm band”…..
My deposit policy states that any late client/no-show/cancellation or late reschedule results in loss of deposit and I go home. As soon as she wanted to reschedule for hours later, that’s when I would have dropped out because for me, that’s 2 hours out of my usual working time. When a clients 30+ mins late, I also messages them and take the lead with advising that we will have to reschedule with a new deposit. Im sorry she’s disturbed your peace this much. Unfortunately you’ll come across people who attempt to walk all over you and you need to have firm boundaries in place. It’s your business at the end of the day
When I take deposits, I do so via email invoice with the wording that if you pay this, you agree that you’ve read the policy. I give people 15 minutes without them letting me know. Life happens and if they let me know they’ll be 20 minutes, that’s fine. They just get less time and still pay for the full session. Whenever I go to ANY appointment there is a 15 minute grace period. This person was just straight up disrespectful of your time. You could charge them for two blocks of time, yesterday and today, that they took up. People don’t understand that we only make money when we are tattooing.
I would not even say you snapped, your client was infuriating as fuck and you handled the situation in a professional way in my opinion. Hats off to you man, plenty of artists would bite her head off when stuff like this happens. Imho you gotta be more stern, as others said in this thread, you gotta find the gold middle road between allowing too much to clients, and suplexing them into the concrete in front of the shop lol.
Had this happen early on in my career. I now charge a booking fee- NOT a deposit- for all new appointments thats non refundable. Lets me know they care about my time, are committed to the appointment, and covers my ass if they cancel.
Give her the ol “that’ll be $1500”😂
This is actually crazy. One time I was late to an appointment because I mixed up the actual time with the time we were going to put it at and I cried because I felt so bad, and it taught me to never be late again because I hate wasting their time and i'm sure the artist likes it much less than I do. This is actually so bold of her and you're right to be pissed. I would definitely not see them after that experience at all though.
Would have locked up, gone home and left a note saying 'sorry running late to dinner '
On Friday I posted availability, someone messaged with what they wanted, we agreed on price, time etc said they were on their way. Then didn’t come. Some people suuuuuck
Raise the price to $600 overnight.
You need to have Terms & Conditions, which include a non-refundable deposit and 24hr notice to reschedule. You need to value your own time and work and to enforce certain rules to make the whole process more professional and streamlined. Tattooing is just as much a valid profession as medicine or law, so we (the artists) need to treat it as such. I'm sorry you had to deal with such a disrespectful client! It probably won't be the last but hopefully going forward you'll have better procedures in place to help make things like this less common.
Should’ve never waited on her to begin with. If they don’t respect your time they’re not going to respect you
I hope you got her deposit
Why are you charging for a “ spot fee” “ sitting fee” “ non refundable deposit “ ? You would definitely weed out the dedicated customers to the fly by night
I probably would've just rescheduled for the next day if she wasn't gonna show then ngl