There is no question about it. The continued effort to legalize cannabis is presenting a massive change to the recreational and consumption habits of tens of millions of Americans.
However, capitalizing on this growing field requires having the appropriate information about who your customers are and what they think of your product, service, and brand.
It is why cannabis customer surveys are becoming a popular tool in the industry.
A dispensary customer survey will provide helpful insights into this growing market, such as:
- Determining a person's level of comfort with buying cannabis.
- Identifying what customers are most likely to buy your product and what marketing messages attract them the most.
- Allocating resources to specific cannabis marketing strategies or marketing campaigns.
- Understanding a person's awareness of your brand and if they are willing to buy your product or service in a certain location.
Keep reading to learn more about cannabis customer surveys – the benefits, process, and example questions.
Don't waste time and resources guessing what your dispensary customers want – let our 2023 Cannabis Consumer Insights Report guide you to success.
What are Dispensary Customer Surveys?
DCustomer surveys are questionnaires designed to give your business better insight into some aspects of your dispensary customers' thoughts, feelings, behaviors, perceptions, and more.
Customer surveys come in many forms, including:
- Product surveys, which can determine specific marketing questions. This includes if someone wants to buy your product, where they would buy it, and under what conditions they would buy it.
- Satisfaction surveys, which gauge the customers' satisfaction with your product or service.
- Brand awareness surveys, which determine if potential customers have even heard of your brand.
- Segmentation surveys, which determine what marketing messages will resonate the most with different groups.
Or, one survey can tackle each of these initiatives.
Recommended Reading: Conducting Customer Satisfaction Surveys [Ultimate Guide]
Benefits of Surveying Dispensary Customers
The primary benefit of conducting any market research study is certainty.
Customer surveys provide certainty to your business by giving you additional information and insight that allows you to comfortably market your specific product or brand.
This is vitally necessary for any field, but even more so for a field like cannabis. That’s because the market is new, but growing.
In fact, for many consumers, cannabis has become part of their regular routine with 48% of consumers using cannabis daily.
The best way to way to tap into this budding market is by leveraging customer feedback to understand buying habits, preferences, needs, and more.
Other benefits of dispensary customer feedback surveys can include the following.
Asking specific questions about your brand.
Customers who have an interest in buying cannabis may want to purchase the product.
Still, given that this area is so new, they may have absolutely no idea about the different cannabis brands that they can buy.
Asking about different cannabis products.
Of course, there are numerous cannabis products, including vapes, edibles, smokables, and more. Different products have very different connotations.
This means that you may need to segment your marketing method by demographic and the product you are advertising.
Understanding what your customers know about cannabis generally.
As noted above, 21 states have legalized cannabis for recreational purposes. However, these laws are brand new.
As such, many customers may not even be aware that they can buy marijuana legally.
Conducting dispensary customer surveys can give you a better idea of what your customers understand and the best way to communicate messages about the new legalization of cannabis.
Identify who your happy customers are.
It is easier to sell to current customers than it is to attract new ones (not to mention less expensive).
In fact, repeat customers have been measured to spend an average of 67% more than new customers.
Therefore, it is extremely beneficial to identify who your satisfied customers are and how you can monopolize this.
Plus, you may find that satisfied cannabis customers have certain characteristics, including age, gender, education level, and more.
By identifying your customer's ideal brand persona, you can best determine what messages they respond well to.
You can then use that information to better locate and communicate with your customers and build brand loyalty.
Identify weaknesses in your product or its messaging.
A customer feedback survey may help determine where your product or messaging isn't hitting the mark.
Therefore, conducting market research with cannabis consumers allows you to make important improvements to better position your product and marketing for success.
Example Dispensary Customer Survey Questions
There are many directions you can take when it comes to a dispensary customer survey. When drafting survey questions it is important to first think about your objectives and goals for the research.
For example, if you are most interested in learning about measuring purchasing behaviors of cannabis users, then the majority of your survey questions should reflect that.
Sample dispensary customer survey questions include:
- Did you enjoy using our product? Was it something you would do again?
- What is your main goal for using our cannabis product?
- What are your main concerns about using our product? Are you concerned about the lasting stigma associated with cannabis?
- What is preventing you from using our product more often?
- Are you concerned with any legal or job-related limitations that may stop you from using our product?
- How would you describe the buying experience of getting our product? Where did you buy it, and was it convenient and easy for you?
You can also ask a series of brand awareness questions. This can include asking the customer if they have heard of your dispensary or cannabis brand and where they heard of it.
You can also ask them to better explain positive and negative feelings about your brand and what they may be able to do to improve your brand's perception among your customer.
Finally, you can use cannabis customer surveys for the collection of basic demographic information. This includes age, gender, location, and education level.
Are you looking for more Voice of Customer (VoC) survey questions? Watch the video below.
How to Survey Dispensary Customers
The most common way to gather feedback from cannabis customers is through an online survey.
Customers are invited to take the survey through email. In the email, businesses invite customers to take the survey through a link.
Other options for cannabis customer surveys include phone or by mail. But an online survey is the best approach to gathering fast, high-quality insights.
It’s also the most cost-effective market research methodology.
The process our team follows when conducting a survey with cannabis customers includes the following steps.
1. Kickoff meeting
One of the first steps of any market research project is a kickoff meeting.
They are important to the process because it is a chance to meet your dedicated team. Here you will discuss your project goals, objectives, workplan, timeline, and more.
2. Survey design
The team begins writing the cannabis customer survey based on the discussion points gathered in the kickoff call. Each survey is custom written to assure your unique objectives are met.
Once the draft is complete, your team reviews the customer survey to approve the document before moving on to programming.
3. Programming
Drive Research transfers the questionnaire to an online survey software. Our team follows our in-house survey programming checklist for quality control.
This includes reviewing answer sequences, scaling and labeling categories on questions, and more.
4. Survey customers of your dispensary
We first soft launch the survey to a small subset of customers.
Doing so allows Drive Research to review the initial batch of data and make sure the survey is working as intended. Once approved, we send the cannabis customer survey to the remaining list.
During this time, our clients receive a live reporting link. It shows responses and data in real time so they can see how the survey is progressing during fieldwork.
Additionally, over the next two weeks, our team also sends a few email reminders to non-responders. We find this step helps improve customer survey response rates.
5. Data cleaning
During fieldwork, our customer satisfaction survey company conducts data quality checks.
This includes reviewing for duplicate responses, straightlining, speedy survey takers, and more.
We remove these cases while fieldwork is in progress so that when the project closes, you earn your goal number of completed surveys, all of which are 100% high quality.
6. Reporting
Drive Research offers several reporting options.
It can be as basic as a topline summary of key findings. Or, as comprehensive as a multi-paged PowerPoint with question-by-question analysis and expert recommendations for how to use the data in your business strategy.
Learn more about the reporting options in our blog post, Topline vs. Comprehensive Market Research Reports.
7. Debrief meeting
Lastly, we close each cannabis customer survey project with a debrief call.
It gives our team the chance to walk through each page of the report and answer any final questions you make have for us.
Final Thoughts
Conducting dispensary customer surveys can be very beneficial for your business in several ways.
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Understand customer needs: Customer surveys can help you better understand your customers' needs, preferences, and expectations. This information can help you tailor your products and services to meet the needs of your customers.
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Improve customer satisfaction: Customer surveys allow you to collect feedback from your customers and identify areas where you can improve. This can help you improve customer satisfaction, which can lead to increased loyalty and repeat business.
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Identify opportunities for growth: Surveys can also help you identify opportunities for growth and expansion. By gathering information about your customers' needs and preferences, you can develop new products or services that meet those needs and expand your business.
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Measure customer loyalty: Customer surveys can also help you measure customer loyalty. By asking questions about customer satisfaction and the likelihood to recommend your dispensary to others, you can gauge the level of loyalty your customers have and take steps to increase it.
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Build relationships with customers: Conducting customer surveys shows that you care about your customers and value their opinions. This can help build positive relationships with your customers and increase their loyalty to your dispensary.
Overall, conducting customer surveys can provide valuable insights that can help you improve your dispensary's products and services, increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, and identify opportunities for growth.
Contact Our Dispensary Customer Survey Company
Given the extremely high usage levels of cannabis products before the product was legalized - and the billions of dollars projected involved in the production and marketing of cannabis - it is clear that this industry has incredible growth potential.
If you need help creating cannabis customer surveys, reach out to Drive Research. We are a full-fledged marketing firm with years of experience in the cannabis field.
We can help your cannabis business design insightful and useful survey questions that can allow you to better understand your customers, learn more about their tastes, and ultimately grow your bottom line.
Reach us today for more information on how we can help your business grow.
- Message us on our website
- Email us at [email protected]
- Call us at 888-725-DATA
- Text us at 315-303-2040
Emily Rodgers
A SUNY Cortland graduate, Emily has taken her passion for social and content marketing to Drive Research as the Marketing Manager. She has earned certificates for both Google Analytics and Google AdWords.
Learn more about Emily, here.
