Three things this site could do while the machine is running.
None of this is switched on. This site doesn't book anybody, doesn't text anybody back, and doesn't ask anybody for a review. It's DEX Builds writing down what we'd wire in behind it, so Inkfam can read the whole thing before saying yes to any of it.
People decide at eleven at night. The shop shut at nine.
Inkfam is open Tuesday to Saturday, eleven in the morning until nine at night. Outside those hours the only thing somebody can do with the link page is look at it. A booking form on this site takes the consult at eleven on a Sunday night and drops it straight onto the shop's calendar, nobody retypes it on Tuesday morning.
Then two things happen on their own. A confirmation goes out the second it's booked, and a reminder goes out before the appointment. The reminder is the part that actually cuts no-shows. And where the work warrants it, a long sitting or a big piece, the same form can take a deposit at the time of booking.
Pick a day.
Whenever they're awake.
The days and times below are the shop's real opening hours. Sunday and Monday can't be picked because the shop is closed.
Nobody types a word of it.
Both messages below are written by the system and sent on their own.
-
The second it's booked
Confirmation: your consultation at Inkfam Tattoo Gallery, 5135 S Emerson Ave. Reply here if anything changes.
-
Before the appointment
Reminder: your consultation at Inkfam is coming up. Bring reference photos if you have any.
-
At the booking, where it's warranted
Deposit , taken on the card at the time of booking. That number belongs to Inkfam and we're not about to make it up.
The buttons work. The booking doesn't: there is no calendar behind this panel, nothing is sent and nothing is kept. To book something real, call (317) 783-1470.
The phone rings while both hands are wrapped.
Eleven to nine, five days a week, somebody in that room is mid-session. Any shop like this one has the same problem. The phone goes off and there is nobody free to answer it who isn't holding a machine.
When a call rings out, an automatic text goes to that number within seconds: sorry we missed you, what can we help with? From there it's a conversation by text, which somebody can answer between passes, or at the counter, or at nine when the room clears. The person who called doesn't spend those four minutes deciding whether to try the next shop on the list.
Krista Parmer's review says getting an appointment with Shadow is a matter of getting lucky. A lot of that is how booked he is. This is the other part.
An invented exchange, written to show the shape of it. No text was sent to anybody and that number isn't real.
421 people wrote about this place. This is what asks for the 422nd.
Four point eight out of five, across four hundred and twenty-one of them. Jennifer Miller's runs five paragraphs and takes in sixteen years, a gastric bypass and her cousin's birthday in heaven. Nobody can ask for a review like that.
But you can ask, every time, and that is the whole of it: after a visit, a message goes out, text or email, asking for a Google review. Reviews are the thing this shop already wins on. This is the part that compounds it instead of leaving it to whoever remembers to say something at the counter.
Before it asks for anything public, it finds out how the visit actually went. Then it splits.
The Google link. One tap.
They're still holding their phone and still buzzing about the piece. That's the moment worth asking in, and it's over in a second.
No public link. It comes to the shop.
An unhappy customer gets routed to the owner privately instead of being handed a review box. Somebody gets the chance to put it right before it's on the internet for good.
That fork is the entire reason to run this rather than a mass text. A shop sitting at 4.8 across 421 reviews has too much to lose to point every single customer at a public form without looking first.
Five things only Inkfam can answer.
We haven't guessed at any of these, and we're not going to. They decide how the thing behaves once it's on, and they belong to the shop.
- iWhose calendar goes online?Every artist, or consultations with one person to start with.
- iiWhich work takes a deposit, and which doesn't?Long sittings only, or anything past a certain size.
- iiiHow long before the appointment does the reminder go out?The day before, the morning of, or both.
- ivWhere do the missed-call texts land, and who answers them?One phone at the counter, or every artist's own.
- vHow soon after a session does the review request go?That evening, or once the wrap comes off.
None of it is on. Say the word and it is.
The booking form, the text-back, the review engine, this whole site: live the day Inkfam says so. Until then nothing here sends a message, books a thing, or collects anybody's details.