Every business has to deal with varying degrees of customer satisfaction, it’s a fact of life when working in a service industry. We at Cardinal Tattoo are quite proud of our record of satisfied customers and our business is supported largely by a growing number of repeat, if not downright habitual, customers. But it’s not always so.

Let’s start with the easy ones: Some people have completely unrealistic expectations with regard to how tattoos are priced and how long it takes to produce high level work. Some people expect to be able to speak to their artist any time, day or night, via personal social media accounts or cell phones. Some people are generally disrespectful of our time and our lives. These people are easy to dismiss as being unreasonable. If you think we’re being rude by pointing this out, stop reading now, you’re one of those people and we’d rather not do business with you. For the rest of you, read on and enjoy learning how you might successfully address filing a complaint in any service industry, including Cardinal Tattoo.

First, how not to do it.

1. Don’t, after having a less-than-ideal experience, immediately go online and attack the business.

2. Don’t, in your public online post, lie.

3. Don’t assume that the only reason you didn’t get things your way is because the business/world/universe is against you. It may have a lot to do with your attitude.

4. Don’t assume that the business would be unwilling or unable to work with you to your satisfaction.

Now, for some things you should do:

1. Speak up, if something isn’t right or the way you want it, let someone who works at the establishment know, or ask why that’s the way it’s being done. Good customer service would dictate that your question or comment will be answered or explained to your satisfaction. If it isn’t, ask for clarity. However, once the situation has been explained, don’t assume that everything has to be changed just for you. At Cardinal Tattoo we have dealt with a significant number of individuals with this sort of entitlement mentality, where they seem to disregard policies in place to protect ourselves and our clients from harm. Yep, people have actually left negative reviews about us for following health department rules. No joke.

2. Contact your artist through proper channels. You wouldn’t look up the local Mickie D’s manager’s personal account on Facebook and tell him how they got your order wrong, right? Well, don’t do that to your tattoo artist either. Cardinal Tattoo is open seven days a week from noon to 10pm, our phone number is posted frequently on this website and can be found with a simple internet search (615 527-7102), if you need to speak with your artist, simply email the shop at info@cardinaltattoo.com, call during business hours, call after business hours and leave a detailed message for us to call you back, or better yet, visit the shop and speak with that artist directly. Messages regarding business sent through personal channels are inappropriate and will not be answered. Once again, if you think this is rude, Cardinal Tattoo is not the place for you. You guessed it, we’ve had a number of people leave negative reviews about our business because we wouldn’t answer business-related questions through personal social media accounts, even AFTER we asked people not to do that and redirected them to the business contact information.

3. Tell the truth. Even if it’s not what we want to hear, it’s better than lying and we’ll respect that. Good relationships cannot be built on lies. If you lie to us, show’s over.

4. Cardinal Tattoo has a policy against doing further business with individuals who have posted negative comments or reviews online. Doing so will end any further communication from us. This is because doing so undermines the process by deliberately trying to harm our business, once someone does that they are forfeiting any possibility of reconciliation.

5. Talk to Will. We know, his knuckles drag the ground sometimes and he has a neck so thick it looks like he could gargle peanut butter, but this business is his entire life. He literally cares about it like you care about your next breath. He has a bit of a reputation for being a jerk, earned purely because he doesn’t take crap, not because he isn’t fair. Beyond that, he is polite, kind, generous to a fault, and open to reason. One of his greatest flaws is also one of the best things about him: his candor. Will once told a woman to her face that the reason he didn’t want to tattoo her was because he felt she wasn’t mentally stable. Should’ve seen the look on her face! But he meant it, and he was right, a real loop-de-loop, that one. He has also offered to cover-up or finish tattoos for free (done by artists who no longer work for Cardinal Tattoo); Given up his portion of the tattoo price as a discount for someone he indirectly inconvenienced; got to work early or stayed late to make getting tattooed easier for someone with a tricky schedule, etc., etc.

6. Say you’re sorry. We know this may seem a bit counter-intuitive to some of you (those in the ‘the customer is always right’ brigade), but if you find yourself on the wrong side of some of our policies or maybe you let your freak flag fly a little too early in the conversation we have a policy- everyone gets a second chance. In order to get that chance you have to be reasonable though, and you have to say you’re sorry. We’ve had people run their mouths online just to come in a few weeks later and apologize, they still get tattooed at Cardinal to this day. One woman cursed Will out in front of a room full of people and her son threatened him with violence. She said she was sorry, he welcomed her back. We’ve had people who no-call, no-showed for an appointment try to reschedule, only to find out they have to pay in full for their appointment to do so, swear at us and hang up the phone only to call a couple weeks later, pay for their appointment, and get a super-sweet tattoo. It’s nothing personal, really. Don’t make it that way.

The policies and procedures at Cardinal Tattoo were developed through years of training and experience to protect the artists and clients of Cardinal Tattoo. These policies are discussed at length throughout this website and every client has to sign paperwork stating they understand and agree to the shop rules. Even knowing this we have people violate that agreement on a weekly basis. If anyone reading this disagrees with any portion of what they have read thus far, you don’t get it, or you are just plain needy, please go somewhere else. We simply don’t have the time to deal with people who can’t or won’t understand why these policies are necessary. Thank you for your time.