With the cannabis industry expanding as more states continue to legalize marijuana, dispensaries are starting to appear at rapid speeds. These dispensaries are selling their wares in a variety of ways, whether it be online, delivered, or in-store. Customers of these dispensaries expect to be served excellent, tailored-made shopping experiences.
The only way a dispensary can ensure their customers get the best quality experience possible is by using technology solutions. Over the years, the retail industry has come to rely on all sorts of technological solutions to ensure they can provide their customers with the best possible shopping experience they would ever have.
The cannabis technology space, otherwise known as “cannatech,” has managed to soar over the last several years, following growth throughout the rest of the industry. These solutions are capable of allowing any dispensary to develop a best-in-class experience on par with traditional retail.
Some of the dispensary software solutions you find online are necessary to ensure your business operates smoothly. However, others are nice to have that help accomplish particular business goals. It comes down to how you are running your dispensary more than necessity.
The question is, how will you know which of these solutions are necessary for your business?
To ensure your dispensary is set up for success, you need to get on the right track by having the proper tools in place. Having these technological solutions for your dispensary set in place can help you with running a smooth operation and ensure you are prepared for the transition each passing day.
For this article, we will go over the must-have technology solutions every dispensary needs to have in their business.
Point Of Sale (POS)
At the most important point, your Point of Sale (POS) technology will be at the center of your dispensary. This software solution acts as your digital cash register and manages the more vital aspects of your business. A POS should be able to manage your transactions, update and adjust your stocklists reliably and in real-time. Furthermore, it conforms to every complex regulation required to be involved in the cannabis field.
When you are searching for a POS system for your dispensary, choose carefully. The people you employ, such as budtenders, managers, security, and so on, are a critical point of contact with your customers. Similarly, having a simple, intuitive, and reliable POS system plays a significant role in showing your customers that your dispensary is one of the best around.
If your customer sees the work you have done to make every easy for them, they will know that your dispensary is operated by a competent and trustworthy business owner.
Furthermore, you want to ensure the POS you choose has an open API that other technology providers can access or native built-in integrations. All of this should be a requirement so you can seamlessly integrate the rest of your tools.
Several POS systems are considered cannabis tech, and one of the most popular ones around would have to be FlowHub. This solution offers you all sorts of features that can ensure you run a smooth operation. They allow you to track and see live inventory, create a catalog filled with an assortment of products, suppliers, and strains. It also automatically reports the data to METRIC through the use of metrics API.
CRM (Customer Relationship Management)
This one is integral for the success of your dispensary. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions allow a business owner to detect and analyze customer habits and behaviors, but it is far more than just a dispensary tech. CRM is an essential aspect of your sales, marketing, and promotional strategy.
While it gathers data from your other necessary technologies such as POS, it’s an overarching contract of each and every customer that visits your store. You will learn who they are, what they enjoy, and how to reach out to them during the best possible time.
Simply put, CRM is at the very center of your business, and it can become one of your most powerful tools in your business arsenal. CRM offers precious insight into your sales and marketing programs, letting you know what is working and what needs improvement. It also helps you continuously refine and improve your business efforts. Furthermore, you will be provided with a simple and intuitive way to measure your Return On Investment (ROI).
A great CRM to pick up for your dispensary would have to be Sprout. This CRM solution helps cannabis companies increase revenue and profit margins by engaging with the customers, developing brand awareness, and driving online and in-store orders through multi-media messaging (MMS) standard messaging (SMS), mobile coupons, mobile surveys, and email marketing.
Customer Loyalty Program
Customer loyalty programs can become one of the most valuable commodities to have when involved in the retail industry. The cannabis industry can particularly benefit from having a customer loyalty program suited for dispensaries. With the number of dispensaries opening each day, there are a significant amount of dispensaries competing against one another for a customer’s loyalty.
As a business owner, you will need to do everything in your power to cultivate and leverage that loyalty. After all, that loyalty will ensure you have a constant flow of revenue.
So what is loyalty software capable of doing? Here what you need to know.
Identify, retain and reward loyal customers: Studies have shown that a 5% increase in customer retention can increase profitability by 75%.
Generate leads and create brand recognition: If customers want to take advantage of any special deals, they will need to opt-in using their phone numbers or email address. That means you will be able to directly sell to someone already interested in your product and cultivate the relationship.
Customer data analysis: The customer data you collect from your Loyalty program software can be used to determine what product to stock, which vendors to partner with, and assist you with setting revenue targets.
For this part, we recommend using Springbig. This solution is a fully functional loyalty marketing and digital communication software platform developed to support all of the loyalty and communication needs a cannabis retailer may require. With the help of Springbig, customer relationship management will become much more manageable.
Online Menu
Remember those moments when you wanted to order food from a local restaurant that services a specific set of meals you are craving for, but looking at the menu shows tons of inaccurate information?
Does that make you want to come back or look for a more professional restaurant?
When it comes to the cannabis industry, you should not fail to maintain your menu. A dispensary menu is merely more than just a list of products you are selling. You need to ensure it’s constantly updated, easy-to-navigate and helpful resources for your customers.
Making sure that your online menu is modernized will ensure your customers continue to come back for more. If you are looking for an online menu for your dispensary, consider checking out GreenScreens. The integration of this solution is excellent for dispensaries that are searching for a digital menu board with a limited-time ad budget. GreenScreens offers up-sell knowledgeable customers while reaching new customers with captivating digital menu boards.
Reporting and Analytics
Collecting data from every aspect of your business in a centralized database makes it possible for you to analyze what is working within the operation and what is not. This type of solution can help with cultivating, adjusting the nutrients or conditions to improve yield and lead to an improvement in your financial performance.
Dispensaries can benefit from the tool to track customers purchasing fluctuations concerning holidays and seasonal trends to help navigate supply chain challenges and forecast demand.
With the data you managed to collect throughout the life cycle from seed to sale, you can identify patterns, predict trends and changes in customer taste, and help plan for the coming future. All of this allows a dispensary to make smart data-driven business decisions.
Features such as cultivation management, regulatory compliance, seed-to-sale traceability, formula and recipe management, and repotting analytics ensure you remain competitive in the cannabis industry. With how dynamic the cannabis marketplace is, the functionality available in cannabis solutions provides the technological tools that your business needs to thrive in a world chock full of profit margins and regulations.
For this part, we will recommend you BDS Analytics. It is a technological solution that provides dispensaries with comprehensive, actionable, and accurate cannabis market insight and consumer research. You will receive insight from the dispensary POS system through its market-leading platform for consumer research and market-wide cannabis industry financial projections.
Customer retention
Every business wants to make sure their customers keep coming back to their store and buying their products. Customer retention is about the number of customers a business can retain and keep coming back over time. Customer retention software helps you minimize the loss of these customers. Usually, by calculating the number of lost customers versus the existing customer over some time, such as a quarter or annually, the customer retention rate does not tally with new customer acquisition.
Most businesses are known to struggle with maintaining their customer retention rates for a variety of reasons. Although, there are custom retention solutions that improve your customer retention rates.
When it comes to technological solutions for retaining your customers, you should consider using Carrot. This software was made to increase your margins and get more out of your customers with a single touchpoint for conversion, engagement, and retention. It offers several features such as automated order fulfillment, complete integrated eCommerce, configures loyalty and rewards, and a full suite of customer engagement tools.
Delivery software
Delivery services are becoming a crucial part of any business out there. Dispensaries need to have their own delivery service to ensure their customers receive their products. Having a delivery service not only makes your sales increase but also offers a chance for underserved communities to purchase cannabis. Although, like anything related to cannabis, compliance is critical, and having a cannabis delivery solution helps with generating lucrative rewards.
Keep in mind that some of your customers will be patients who need medical cannabis to deal with their health problems. They rely on dispensaries to make regularly scheduled deliveries and expect effortless transactions are necessary for maintaining a positive relationship, which means getting their orders correctly the first time and every other time.
Along with efficiently automating a customer’s order, robust cannabis delivery software should provide insight into product preferences, delivery frequency, and transaction amount. As you analyze the data, customer insight for both adult-use and medical customers will appear, enabling you to better serve them with targeted upsells offers, refill reminders, and promotions.
At the end of the day, your dispensary will make things easier for not only your customers but your business by installing delivery software to your repertoire of tools.
When it comes to delivery software, you should consider checking out WebJoint.
WebJoint offers you a solid feature that ensures your inventory management is up to date and streamlines your operations. It also ensures your business remains compliant with state regulation and offers you the tools you need to make better business decisions. They help cannabis delivery services operate efficiently and deal with complications that appear when it comes to making deliveries. WebJoint holds the key to scaling your dispensary.
Conclusion
The cannabis industry is going to become a booming industry within the coming years. If you are not preparing your dispensary to deal with this coming future, you are most likely to lose your customers to a superior competitor. These technological solutions will ensure your dispensary manages to stay on top of things, all while delivering exceptional customer service.
Make sure to take a close look at your business before deciding what type of solution you need to streamline your dispensary. Depending on how you run your business, so tech may not be suited for your business needs.
