Are You Educating Your Customers?

There’s a lot to think about when running a dispensary. You have to keep your shop well-stocked, train and manage your staff, market your products and brand, track sales goals, and create a welcoming space where people want to visit again and again. Amidst all of that (and I kept the list short, I know there are plenty more things that dispensary owners and managers have to take care), one thing frequently falls through the cracks. Customer education.

Now, you may be thinking, “but my budtenders are well-trained. They answer all of our customer’s questions.” Which is great. That’s one step.

But what about the questions your customers don’t even know to ask?

Or what about the potential customers that didn’t even bother coming in to ask their questions?

A recent survey by Oasis Intelligence found that more than 70% of the cannabis consumers questioned did not know what terpenes were or know about the entourage effect. At the same time, the number one place people want to learn from is… dispensaries.

That’s a lot of responsibility! But if you want to differentiate yourself and your products—and build lasting customer relationships—it’s a responsibility that you need to take on board.

Thankfully, you probably already have your number one educational tool in place—your website.

Not only is your website your digital storefront, but it can also be a knowledge center for potential customers and current customers who want to learn more about cannabis. Here’s what you need to maximize your website to help provide valuable customer education.

Customer Education: What You Need On Your Website

Educational Pages

Depending on your dispensary’s goals, you may want to create dedicated pages to particular topics. For example, if you want to share the latest wellness information with your customers, maybe having a CBD page with the latest studies or a page that helps visitors decipher what a THC:CBD ratio is. A medical dispensary may want to create a series of educational pages based around their state’s qualifying conditions, like “Cannabis for ALS,” “Cannabis for Chronic Pain,” and “Cannabis for Cachexia.”

You can also create a page for first-time visitors that helps demystify the process so they feel more confident going into your dispensary or ordering online.

Product Pages

Whether you highlight specific brands or product types (flower, vape cartridges, edibles, etc.), these pages help provide general information that can help customers decide whether certain products will help them in their goals.

FAQ Page

Your FAQ page is a great place to post all of those questions that you hear over and over again. These can be cannabis questions or questions specific to your dispensary (like if you only accept cash). An FAQ page can help reduce the number of calls you receive from curious potential customers so that you can focus on the people coming in or ordering online.

Blog Posts

educating customers blog
The beauty of blog posts is that they can be relatively short while still remaining informative. You can touch on a variety of topics and slowly build up a knowledge database over time (much like we’re doing here!).

You’ll notice that on our blog front page, you can choose a blog category in the drop-down menu. This allows you to easily navigate to the topics that interest you. Having that feature or listing your categories on the side so visitors can easily find them.

Online Chat

customer education 5
Customers love live chat! It’s an easy way to get a quick answer. For many dispensaries, COVID-19 has led to more online orders and limited in-store contact. By having live chat, you can make sure that you’re able to offer a level of customer service to individuals using your website, just like you would in-store.

Want to try chat for free? Check out: MediaJel.me/Olark.