Customizing the Body (PDF file) - Print My Tattoo

147 The Tattoo Relationship
recipient's experience will be more intrinsically rewarding and
less anxiety-producing if he or she attends to the cues by which
the service proVider communicates the normative expectations
that constrain the service interaction. In turn. the care exercised
by the tattooist in the service delivery process and the final outcome
of the transaction are, to a large measure. dependent on the
quality of the relationship which develops.
I can assess people when they come in the door and I know
what it is going to take to please that person and who not to
waste the effort on. I don't mean not do a good job on them.
cheat them. It's always going to be done properly in herethey're
going to get what they see on the picture. Someone who
comes with Yosemite Sam over here and down here they got the
Tasmanian Devil thrOWing the finger or something and they
want a Donald Duck over here and they think these crudely
done things are great ... I realize that I don't have to bend
over backwards for this guy. I used to try to go overboard for
everybody and they didn't really appreCiate it. There's a
difference between doing it and putting your heart into it. It's
going to always be technically right. I'm not going to put any
extra effort into something or get into custom free-hand like
stuff on someone who I don't have the rapport with and I
can't spend that time with.
CONCLUSION
Conflict is an everpresent possibility in the service delivery setting
of the tattoo studio. Clients typically are unfamiliar with the
situation. unknowledgeable about the normative constraints to
which they are expected to conform, and fearful of the pain of the
tattoo process. Within this context of risk-physiological, finan­
Cial. temporal, and social-tattooees make choices of design and
location based on intrapersonal, aesthetic, and socially symbolic
criteria that they have often only vaguely examined and defined.
In order to increase their store of information and reduce purchase
risk. they limit the size and price of the tattoo. spend time
watching and interacting with the tattooist, and commonly enter