Hi there, and welcome back to another written edition of the Talking Cannabis Podcast with Harmony and Luie. We have something a little different about today that we are going to discuss. Since the last time we posted, we have had a good chance to spend some time traveling, visiting new dispensaries, and learning a lot about the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to options that are available out there.
We have the great opportunity to visit all kinds of dispensaries, and learn what some of our favorite strains and brands are, as well as what some of the main things we dislike about going to the dispensary are. Then again, these might be some things that just seem to bother us, but might be a big deal to another patient – so we want to hear from you! Once you’ve read what some of our biggest pet peeves at the dispensary are, feel free to drop a comment discussing a dispensary experience you had that might have irked you a little!
If any of our stories strikes home, we would love to hear your feedback or your stories on difficulties or problems you have encountered at the dispensary.
1. Just Can’t Seem to Find it
One thing we know we can’t stand is when we are looking for a dispensary we have heard or read about in a town, and we just can’t seem to find it anywhere. You might be surprised at just how often this issue arises – either because a dispensary hasn’t updated their address on listings, or might not have even made listings to begin with (at least ones that seem easy enough to find by Googling or looking up local dispensaries).
We can’t even tell at this point how many dispensaries we could have visited but were unable to due to simply not being able to find them. Unfortunately, we simply don’t have the time to be driving around town all day trying to find your dispensary. You might finally find the dispensary after a while of driving around and looking for them on the streets, and they might not have even had a great bud by the time it’s all said and done. An occurrence which is becoming all too often – which is how this particular little issue is at the top of the list for today’s conversation.
2. Not Enough Information Available Online
We do a good bit of traveling as a family with having the freedom that working online affords, and so while we have our preferences and know what we like, we won’t always know what every dispensary we come across is going to have in stock.
Maybe all they have is a bunch of mid-grade flower, and you’re on the lookout for top-shelf. Sometimes, we can see on the GPS where some dispensaries are listed on our way to another dispensary, and we can’t recall finding anything about it online. Unfortunately, to save time and money, we can’t visit every dispensary we find that we can’t find basic information about online.
This, at the moment, is kind of a double-edged-sword for dispensary owners and customers. Dispensary owners are actually very restricted with how they can get their name out there right now. Since cannabis is still illegal at a federal level, you aren’t going to have much luck as a dispensary owner with finding somewhere to advertise your business as well as everything you offer, tools which are freely available to “normal” business owners. Unfortunately, this is how the law is right now, and no one wants to risk their business and livelihood over potential legal restrictions.
Dispensary owners who make sure their information is all current and up-to-date on their websites, their social media pages, and Google My Business listing (if applicable) will work wonders for discover-ability of your dispensary. Weedmaps is another good resource if the owners keep the information current, along with a mobile app you can use if you are looking for your flower on the go.
3. Is There Educational Info About Your Dispensary and Products?
This is one of those topics people who are just now getting into using cannabis might not even be aware of – but you want to make sure whatever dispensaries you end up to visit has something in stock that will be of use to you. After all, if you are looking for a “top-shelf” product, you likely aren’t going to want to shop at a dispensary that only sells mid-grade or “bottom-shelf.”
If you are already a bona-fide cannabis user, then you likely know what kind of products and strains are right for you and what you might be looking for. Sometimes, you’ll have brand new patients or older folks who don’t know things about CBD, terpenes, character profiles of plants, all the various strains and the differences between sativa and indica, and so much other pertinent information.
There is a good bit of information you need to study up on when becoming a new cannabis patient, especially if it is going to be your first time ever visiting a dispensary. Just having the budtender “Get anything off the shelf” might not be conducive to helping you discover which strains and products are the right ones for you.
Some dispensaries go above and beyond in this way – many will have a full menu or a book showing what they carry, along with paperwork and guidance on strains, types of products, and more. Don’t be afraid to talk to your budtender and see how willing they are going to be to help you, because great ones will go out of their way to help make sure you are getting a cannabis product that is going to be right up your alley.
If you can find a dispensary where you can find their stock available online, or even in-store and explained well to you so that you can understand the benefits of each one and whether it might be right for you or not, and staff go out of their way to help you find the perfect bud, then you have likely found a dispensary worth becoming a regular with.
4. Keep Unique Products Around…
One thing people like about their favorite dispensaries is just how they can get in, get their range of cannabis products, and get back home to enjoy their products. One other way you can make sure customers keep coming to your dispensary is to simply make sure you are keeping unique products around that not every other dispensary around you happens to be selling.
If you can consistently keep around a line of products that your competitors don’t have, patients local to your area will remember your dispensary as the one in town that has all of the coolest and most unique products around. Whether it’s cool new smoking pieces, delightful edibles like THC-infused Rice-Krispy Treats, or your dispensary’s own personal strain of cannabis, having something that sets you apart will keep people coming back time and time again.
This is exactly how we have found some of our most memorable dispensaries from around the country – they had great service and products that we simply couldn’t forget about!
5. … and Understand the Products You Are Selling
One of the most important things for staff at any dispensary to make sure they have covered is knowledge surrounding what they sell, and the benefits their patients could glean from them. This is one of the main issues surrounding us, because here in Arkansas where we live, we do have medical cannabis available, but options for dispensaries are quite limited.
There are some amazing dispensaries that we have been able to find, but one of the show-stoppers is when someone is looking for information on a product’s quality, profile, and other similar matters, and the staff either doesn’t know the information or is seemingly unable to find it. These are things that are very important to patients who would love to be spending their money in your dispensary – but have questions remaining unanswered, such as:
- What is the CBD to THC ratio in this product?
- What are the terpenes included?
- What is the character profile of this particular plant?
While these bits of information might not be the most important for recreational users, they can be of utmost importance to medical users, who are looking to get strains that are going to help them out with their specific situation. We know people who go to dispensaries looking for relief from Parkinson’s Disease, and these are the types of questions they are asking.
It’s similar with folks who recommend top-shelf stuff without an explanation. Is it so the dispensary makes more money, or is it because this particular strain just might be the right fit for a specific patient? Some folks will reach for the bottom-shelf stuff because it is cheaper, not because they think it is going to be very helpful to them thanks to its high amounts of terpenes and CBD content – if I’m not presented with information on why the top-shelf is going to be the better option for me than the bottom-shelf, why should I spend the extra money?
If you own a dispensary, make sure you train up your staff on everything you sell, and what medical benefits they can present to different kinds of patients. You will make so many patients happy just by doing something that might seem so small and trivial, but could make a huge difference in a patient’s life, as well as keep them coming back to your dispensary.
6. Offer Plenty of Ways to Make Your Dispensary Memorable
Having a hard time feeling like you are keeping customers flowing through the door of your dispensary? Make sure you are doing something to reach out to the community! Customers can’t have a great time at your dispensary if it isn’t obvious what you are offering, so make sure you have your information available online, as discussed earlier, and think about other ways you can keep customers back for more.
You might think about offering branded clothing, smoking pieces, or something else to make your dispensary stick out in the minds of your customers. This isn’t exactly the biggest complaint, but one thing that will keep me from going back to a dispensary is a lack of products, bad service, or just general fogginess in remembering the visit. If I can’t recall a single thing that stuck out to me about your dispensary, how am I going to remember what your dispensary was even called, or how to get there?
There are thousands of ways you can make your dispensary a little more memorable to customers, like this next big tip.
7. Level Up Your Online Listings, Show off Your Specials!
Medical cannabis patients love to know what they can find at dispensaries around them, as well as whether or not that dispensary might have some cool deals it can offer up for first-time patients. A ton of dispensaries run specials and discounts for first-time customers, holidays, and more.
If you run a Google My Business page, make sure you have your menu and list of specials available. This way, once your listing is updated, every potential customer can see exactly what kind of products you offer (and what kind of specials you might be running) before they ever pick up the phone or come into the dispensary. If you can keep these pieces of information consistently up to date, you might be surprised at how many more people you see coming through the doors. Who knows? They might end up becoming loyal customers thanks to your diligence in keeping them up to the minute on how things are going at your dispensary.
As a customer, make sure you are looking around for deals, as well. You might be surprised at how many dispensaries will offer things like free pre-rolled joints, discounted grams of bud, cheap edibles, and more to both long-term returning customers and new patrons alike. This can help you find an awesome dispensary and some great deals, hopefully netting you some saved money and a preferred place to shop in one fell swoop.
8. Make Sure Your Customer Service is Up to Snuff
You’d be surprised at how many dispensaries we have encountered where we felt like the customer service could be much better. If you own a dispensary, you should make sure you are putting a smile on the face of every customer who walks inside, and raising the bar for other dispensaries in your area!
If we go to a dispensary, and we aren’t treated well by the staff, we won’t be making many return trips even if they have a ton of the product we like. If we can’t find it literally anywhere else we might come back to your store to begrudgingly make the purchase and leave, but we still won’t be talking up your customer service tactics or making recommendations to our friends until there is some evidence from past customers that your staff have upped their customer service game.
We absolutely love finding dispensaries who are going out of their way to welcome their customers, help them find the perfect flower, and in general continue to set the standard for how dispensary staff should be in regards to their customers. We will always go out of our way to recommend people to go visit dispensaries where we have been welcomed, and with all of the dispensaries we have shopped at in so many different states at this point, we have seen some interesting stories.
We’re just thinking “You barely know a thing about what you sell, you’re trying to get me in and out of the door without understanding my condition – and you have the audacity to display a tip jar on the counter?” Some folks just don’t care about their jobs, but someone cares about that dispensary a lot – they obviously put their time, work, and money into opening it up.
Remember, it’s a dispensary, not a McDonald’s drive-through, so you should be able to expect proper, smiling service as a customer of the establishment. In fact, there is one dispensary in Washington that relates to this story: Prices were amazing, there were so many unique products I hadn’t found anywhere else, great reviews and great service, the whole nine yards. The budtender we saw was awesome, and we even signed up for their text-messaging campaign so we could keep up with what was going on at the location even though we don’t live there.
What Are Some of Your Dispensary Hang-Ups?
Thanks for joining us for another Talking Cannabis Podcast. While this might have seemed like a pessimistic entry thanks to the slightly “negative” subject matter, don’t worry! We are already in the process of putting together an entry about things that we have loved about our favorite dispensaries.
If you have some of your own stories to share, such as dispensary annoyances or even some of your favorite stories from your local dispensary, feel free to share them with us in the comments! Let us know what you think of them and why they rock – and maybe we can reach out and talk to them. We might even take some of your notes and feature you on the podcast so you can tell your story personally about that dispensary that just seems to go above and beyond.
Some of these sound like something you might be dealing with in your own business? We certainly hope not, because we want to make sure you are bringing great customers like us into your dispensary! Go ahead and click on the link where you can find a free assessment of your business, and discover how you can follow some of our best practices and not end up in someone’s “annoying dispensaries” list (and please, get a Google My Business listing if you don’t already have one).
Make sure you check out our other blogs and video entries, so you can catch up with our journey to discover some of the best cannabis products around, as well as tell the stories of some of those dispensary owners and staff going above and beyond to help the people that need them. Thanks for sticking with us through this journey as we travel around the nation, find the best dispensaries and the best cannabis products you can find.
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