With legalization on the legislative docket across the company, cannabis businesses are the retail industry’s rising stars. Dispensary success stories dot the landscape from the forests of Maine to the beaches of California. In fact, Business Insider names marijuana-related businesses as the fastest growing job sector in the United States.

What does that mean for you? One word: competition. The key to coming out on top? Two words: customer service.

Adding a waitlist and appointment app like Waitlist Me to your arsenal of business tools is an easy way to improve customer experience and loyalty and to increase your referral clientele. Plus, you can get started today for free!

Read on for five ways Waitlist Me can help you run a better marijuana business.

Let customers browse while they wait

A store loaded with interesting edibles feels like a grown-up candy store! Indulge your customers’ desires to take it all in without forcing them to give up their spot in line.

With Waitlist Me, guests can add their names to a digital queue. Then, they can delve into your merchandise, exploring their options and coming up with questions for your staffers. When one of your sales associates is free to assist them, customers will get a text on their smartphone letting them know their turn has arrived. Waiting has never been so simple!    

Welcome new customers to your store

A dispensary isn’t like other stores offering consumable goods. There are all sorts of variables new customers need to be educated about. Who better to guide them than your expert staff?

Waitlist Me frees up your staff so they can worry about one customer at a time. The app keeps track of your line—and lets queuers know their ETA—so that your employees don’t have to. This ensures that each person who steps into your store feels special and can ask every question they have about your products, no matter how small.

Bonus: Eliminating the need for staffers to juggle all the customers in your store will cut down on stress and improve sales results thanks to personalized, one-on-one attention.

Eliminate the wait for walk-ins

For regulars who know what they want and are on a tight schedule, Waitlist Me is what they’re waiting for.

Our app offers a web widget that businesses can easily place on their website. The web widget lets customers jump in line from wherever they are, like their office cubicle or a bar a few blocks over. That means less waiting around in your store for a clerk and more time enjoying life.

Introduce new treats

As the cannabis industry continues to grow, new products continue to pop up every day. Hosting in-store parties and tastings for these fresh goodies let your local community know what’s new. Waitlist Me lets you manage these crowded events with ease.

With Waitlist Me’s kiosk mode, you can let guests check themselves in as soon as they enter your store. Then, they can browse and mingle until you’re ready to show off your new wares. Our public waitlist feature, which customers can access on their phones and on in-store monitors, keeps them updated on their place in line.

Match shoppers with expert staffers

Have customers looking to ease medical complaints? How about newbies not sure where they should start? While some can help themselves, others need more guidance. Waitlist Me is here to help you help them.

Waitlist Me allows you to assign customers to certain employees. If you have associates with expertise in different areas, you can make sure that they help the customers who have questions they can answer best.

With spring comes warmer weather and sandal-shoppers, and more customers in your salon. Don’t leave them stuck sitting on a bench, frustrated with the wait times. With Waitlist Me, you can give your clients the freedom to take a walk in the spring weather while tracking their wait on their phone…without losing their spot in line. They will receive a text notification when they are added to Waitlist Me, and can check to see how many people are ahead of them from their phones. Then just press a button to send a text notification to let them know when you are ready for them.

An easier waiting process will encourage customers to return and refer friends. Waitlist Me also allows you to schedule reservations, so you can keep things running smoothly with both your regular visits and larger bookings like for birthday parties, bridal showers, and outings with friends. Reservations for the current day will automatically appear in the same view as your waitlist so managing your schedule and walk-ins is a breeze.

When giving their name, customers can also specify what they would like for a service, from the person they would like to help them to the style of manicure or pedicure they would like. This makes it easier to schedule them for available or preferred nail technicians, and speeds up the entire process, so you can serve more people per day while providing a more and a more relaxing experience for your clients.

With a waitlist system that gives you more valuable information, you can measure how many people are coming into your salon every day, and how quickly those customers are being helped. This will help you improve the wait estimates you give to your clients and improve their wait experiences. Set your nail salon above the rest by streamlining your services and getting rid of paper waitlists and reservation books. No more remembering to buy another reservation book, losing pens, running out of space and deciphering illegible handwriting.

Spring is the perfect time to clean up your reservation system, so try Waitlist Me.

The restaurant world is getting a tech upgrade, and it’s powered by AI. OpenTable’s new AI Concierge feature is a big step forward in exposure of the new type of capabilities that are now possible with vertically integrated AI, and it follows the type of features we proved were possible when we launched Perklist’s AI Assistant earlier this year in March.

OpenTable’s Concierge: Summarizing User Reviews

OpenTable, the go-to for reservations, has introduced its AI-powered Concierge. This assistant is integrated directly into the OpenTable app and website and is designed to answer a diner’s questions about a restaurant, like “What are popular dishes?” or “Can I get a vegetarian meal here?” It’s a handy tool that saves diners from having to call the restaurant or dig through different websites.

However, a key point here is where the Concierge currently gets much if not all of its information from customer reviews. The big advantage of this approach is it works with data that OpenTable already has for the restaurants using its platform, but it can be a bit of a double-edged sword for a restaurant. The AI might provide details based on a past review that may not be entirely accurate or up-to-date. A restaurant has less direct control over how this information is presented, and the AI’s response might not always perfectly align with what the business wants to communicate. Still the simplicity of just turning on this feature for existing customers with many reviews is key, and OpenTable can allow restaurants to refine or better control the feature over time.

Perklist’s AI Assistant: Utilizing Restaurant Menus and Other Information

On the other side, Perklist offers an AI Assistant that’s all about empowering the restaurant. This tool is a chatbot that a business can add to its own website and gives more control to the restaurant in the menu and other information it uses for its interactions with customers.

To set it up, you simply upload your own official menu, product list, or other business information. The AI assistant then uses this exact information—and only this information—to answer customer questions. A restaurant can also add custom details about their policies, FAQs, and hours. This means that a customer’s question about a specific menu item will be answered with the restaurant’s own description, not with an interpretation from an online review. Perklist puts the business directly in the driver’s seat, ensuring the message is always accurate and on-brand, and makes it easy to update and keep the information accurate and aligned with the business goals.

If there’s one thing social media has shown us, it’s that skincare, makeup, and hair products aren’t going out of fashion. Everyone wants to look good and feel good in their own skin, and this niche helps them do exactly that.

There’s great news for cosmetics retailers, too. While other industries are beating back e-commerce competition, beauty counters, branded boutiques, and local bath and body shops alike have a major advantage: their customers crave professional advice and want to try before they buy. That advantage keeps shoppers walking through doors rather than logging in online. The best way to keep them coming back, though, is to wow them with stellar customer service.

Want to gain an edge on your local cosmetics store competition? Check out Waitlist Me Pro.

First, let’s talk about waitlists

Waitlists are more common in restaurants than in retail stores, but Waitlist Me is changing that one customer experience at a time.

The thing about waitlists is that they make every situation during which customers might encounter a queue smoother and more positive for everyone involved. Whether they’re in a makeover line or need the help of a sales associate to make a decision about a product, waitlists let stores cut frustration out of the equation (along with the line-cutters that drive customers nuts).

At its most basic level, our app lets businesses add customers to a waitlist and text them when they reach the front of the line. Except with a digital waitlist, there is no line! Guests are free to roam about your store and look at different products they might be interested in, or to walk down the block and return when a sales associate can focus on them one-on-one.

Read more about how cosmetics stores can use waitlists here.

Why Waitlist Me Pro 

Superior customer service is more than a guessing game. To gain insights on how to improve your business, it helps to have data to back up your gut instincts. That’s where Waitlist Me Pro comes in.

The Pro-level app, which is compatible with Apple, Android, and web-based devices, comes with several valuable reports. Just by using the app you’ll be saving information in the background while you and your employees are working. When you’re ready to create new schedules, you can quickly download these reports to see when you need more help and when you can get away with less.

Waitlist Me Pro helps you track your customers from the minute you add them to a waitlist to when they walk out the door. That makes it easy to see where you need to allocate time and resources, and how you can improve your store’s efficiency and productivity.

Your boutique packed with shoppers? That’s a dream come true. Your store monopolized by a line of customers waiting for a dressing room? Now, that’s a nightmare.

Long lines for changing rooms can make people walk right out the door without giving your store—or your products—a chance. Don’t lose potential sales (or risk annoying loyal customers). Waitlist Me is a waitlist app that can help you manage traffic better and improve shopping experiences. Here’s how you could use it:

Keep customers shopping, not waiting

Browsing beats out waiting every single time, and Waitlist Me helps you let your customers do exactly that. Our text notification feature makes it easy for shoppers to take another look around your store without worrying about giving up their place in line. When you add them to the waitlist, they can check their place in line from their phone or just wait for you to text them when it is their turn.

Create an in-store kiosk

Worried about seeming pushy? Enter Waitlist Me’s kiosk mode, which lets customers add themselves to your waitlist without the help of a sales associate. All you need is a mobile device, like a tablet that runs iOS or Android, and a sign, and you’re ready to go! Bonus: Kiosk mode will free up your sales associates, too, making it easier for them to focus their energies on customers.

Turn shoppers into VIPs

There’s just something nice about a sales associate knocking on your waiting room door and saying, “Sam, can I get you a different size?” rather than, “Hey, you! How ya doin’ in there?” Waitlist Me lets you personalize your customer service from your very first interaction. We even offer a notes feature, which lets associates add brief details to each customer. Shopping for a semi-formal? Got it!

Offer a personal shopping service

A boutique-level offering can elevate any store—and add to your bottom line. With Waitlist Me, you can offer personal shopping alongside the more typical DIY variety and allow customers to book the service directly from the app. Our at-a-glance visual interface lets staffers quickly see who’s waiting for what and if you need to allocate more associates or dressing rooms to one area or the other.

Track your dressing room usage

Do you have enough dressing rooms available for your customers? Could you improve your store layout or your staffing to increase turnover time without sacrificing sales or the customer experience? Waitlist Me Pro’s analytics capabilities let you track how much time customers spend in dressing rooms, which helps you make informed decisions about your store’s future.