Dispensary Customer Journey Mapping 101: A Guide

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The customer journey typically consists of five stages: awareness, consideration, decision, retention, and loyalty. The interactions a customer has with your business as they move through each stage make up the overall experience they have with your brand. 

Understanding the customer journey is vital to ensuring incredible experiences with your dispensary at every stage. It can also help you convert more customers and transform them into loyal fans of your brand. That’s where customer journey mapping comes in. 

A customer journey map is a visual representation of the customer journey. It shows every point of contact your customers have with your dispensary before, during, and after they make a purchase. With it, you can learn more about their experiences with your dispensary and find ways to make their journeys from prospective customers to loyal fans better. 

Benefits of Customer Journey Mapping

Customer journey mapping offers several significant benefits:

  • Uncover customer pain points 
  • Identify unmet needs
  • Gain a better understanding of your customers
  • Improve your marketing efforts 
  • Boost customer retention and loyalty
  • Increase customer engagement
  • Improve your customer experience

How to Map Out the Customer Journey

The following steps can help guide you through the customer journey mapping process:

Set Goals

Determine what you want to achieve by creating a customer journey map. For instance, you might want to optimize your website for more conversions. Or you might want to gain a better understanding of customer needs. Then, based on your objective, decide on the key performance indicators (KPIs) you want to monitor, such as conversion rates, click-through rates, or social media shares. These metrics will help you track your progress and assess the success of your efforts. 

Create Customer Personas

Identify your core customer segments and create a customer persona for each group. Consider the following:

  • What are their demographics? 
  • What problem are they looking to solve? 
  • What are their criteria for making a purchase? 
  • How do they prefer to shop?
  • What online channels do they use to evaluate their options?

To do this, you’ll need to do a bit of research. Feedback from your current customers — using surveys or questionnaires — and customer analytics data can provide valuable insight. 

Define the Buying Process for Each Persona 

Next, consider how each persona moves through the customer journey from the moment they find your cannabis brand until after they make their initial purchase. How do they first encounter your brand, and where do they go from there?

Create a list of every possible touchpoint along the journey. These are all the times — online and offline — when a customer comes into contact with your brand. How do customers move between these touchpoints? 

As you move through touchpoints, identify potential pain points along the way. Where are customers experiencing frustration or dropping off of their journey? Are there any gaps or obstacles between touchpoints? Understanding this information allows you to find solutions that make the journey smoother and improve the overall experience. 

Visualize the Process

Tools like templates, infographics, and mapping software help bring your customer journey map to life. They help visualize the process and keep information organized, making it easier to stay on track. 

Assess Your Resources

Customer journey mapping can also help you identify the resources you need to address pain points and improve the overall customer experience at every step. Take stock of what you currently have and determine what you’ll need to implement changes. 

Take a Trip on the Customer Journey

Take a walk in the shoes of each customer segment and experience the customer journey for yourself. As you move along touchpoints, note any obstacles or issues you encounter. From the customer’s perspective, what would make things better? Go on the journey again after you make changes to ensure those adjustments are successful. 

Work With a Team of Experts

Working with a team of marketing and customer experience professionals like Highopes can make customer journey mapping and implementing improvements a breeze. With experts by your side, you can lead your customers along a smoother, more pleasant journey, which can result in better overall experiences with your brand. 

Improve Your Dispensary Customer Journey With Highopes

Are you looking to give your customers amazing, unforgettable experiences at every stage of their journeys? Visit Highopes online or contact us directly to learn more about our services and find out how we can help you achieve your goals. 

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Patrick Toste from HIGHOPES

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