Your budtenders are some of the most important employees for customer retention and sales. They’re on the frontline of greeting guests, ensuring they receive the right products, and keeping up with compliance and POS systems. So, keeping up on budtender training, and things a budtender should know – is crucial to the success of your dispensary.
To help, we’ve put together a quick guide on the top five ways you can improve dispensary service with budtender education, and dispensary worker tips.
Tip #1: Pride in Professionalism
Gone are the days of typical stoner stereotypes standing behind the counters of medical marijuana and recreational dispensaries. Recently, there’s been an increasing focus on budtender professionalism in the industry, that best serves a wide range of new-age cannabis customers. Instill a company culture that nurtures and maintains budtenders prioritizing professionalism, so every type of customer feels comfortable with the advice or guidance they give.
Tip #2: Craft a Rewarding Culture
Speaking of culture…happy dispensary workers tend to be good dispensary workers. So keeping your budtenders happy is one way to craft a workplace culture that’s beneficially rewarding. In general – and across industries – when an employee feels supported by their employer, they are more willing and incentivized to perform their very best…and beyond.
Tip #3: Enrich Education 
The more your budtenders know about cannabis, its effects, exact compounds and the customers they’re serving…the more equipped they are to serve them well. Don’t assume that just because a budtenders’ qualifications say they know the ins and outs of weed, that they actually do. Keep up with continuing education on the plant, just like any other industry would do with educational events, webinars or conferences.
Tip #4: Preach Products
If your business doesn’t incorporate frequent product training, or require product information from vendors…you should start. As available products grow in the market, it’s harder and harder to keep up with exact product details. What your budtenders don’t know, they can’t sell. When you preach products to your budtenders, they have a better chance at selling high profit goods and cross-selling, too.
Tip #5: Simplify Compliance
The easier your systems are for ensuring compliance, the easier it is for your budtenders to do their job. By incorporating advanced POS systems, and easy procedures to follow in your operations, a budtenders’ duties can shift towards selling vs. worrying how to comply.
Budtending for Success
With the budtender tips you’ve learned today, you’ll be able to strengthen your business operations from the customers’ first point of contact. Incorporating ongoing budtender training ensures your dispensary workers stay on top of their game. When you employ the best budtenders, you can feel more confident knowing you’ll avoid unnecessary fines, and welcome repeat customers back through the door.
So how do you know that your budtenders are staying in-line? Mystery shopping your medical marijuana dispensary or retail storefront is the best way to do so. You’ll get valuable information to determine what part of the process your budtenders need to improve, or what budtender tools could be more helpful to your customers. Even better, you may just get the peace of mind to ease your mind. Contact Coyle today to begin mystery shopping or improving your systems for better counter support.
