Original research · methodology published in advance
The San Diego dispensary phone study
We are calling every licensed cannabis storefront in the City of San Diego three times — at afternoon peak, shortly before closing, and after hours — and recording whether anyone answers and whether three basic customer questions can be answered. The methodology is below. Results are not published yet.
Status: not yet conducted
This page exists before the study runs, on purpose. Publishing the method first means the results cannot be quietly reshaped to suit them afterwards. When the calls are complete the findings will be added here, along with the full per-business data.
Why phones
Cannabis retail cannot buy conventional advertising. Google and Meta both prohibit cannabis ads outright, so licensed operators depend on directories, organic search, and direct contact. That makes the phone an unusually load-bearing channel for this industry compared with most retail — and an unanswered phone a more expensive failure than it would be elsewhere.
There is published industry work suggesting most dispensary calls are routine questions that go unanswered after hours. We have not seen that measured for a specific city with named businesses. That is the gap this study fills.
Method
- Population. Every licensed cannabis storefront in the City of San Diego, verified against the California Department of Cannabis Control licence list rather than a commercial directory.
- Three calls per business, placed to the publicly listed number: mid-afternoon on a weekday, thirty minutes before posted closing, and ninety minutes after posted closing.
- Calls are dialled by a person. No autodialer and no prerecorded message.
- No recording. California requires all-party consent, so we capture metadata only.
- We identify ourselves honestly if asked. No pretexting and no false pretences.
What is recorded
| Field | Values |
|---|---|
| Answered by | Person, automated menu, voicemail, or no answer |
| Rings before answer | Count |
| Hold time before reaching a person | Seconds |
| Question 1 — are you open right now? | Answered or not |
| Question 2 — do you deliver to a given postcode? | Answered or not |
| Question 3 — do you have a given category in stock? | Answered or not |
| After-hours behaviour | Answered, voicemail, or no answer |
What is not recorded
No audio, no names of individual staff, no customer data, and no attempt to place an order. The three questions are ordinary questions any customer might ask, and each call ends there.
Disclosure of interest
This study is funded and conducted by BizRnR, which sells software that answers business phone calls. We have a commercial interest in the finding that phones go unanswered. That is exactly why the method is published before the results, why the raw per-business data will be published alongside the summary, and why every business will be shown its own results before anything goes out.
If the study finds San Diego dispensaries answer their phones well, that result will be published in the same detail as any other.
Common questions
- Are the study results published yet?
- No. The methodology is published in advance and the results will be added once the calls have been made. Nothing on this page is an estimate or a placeholder.
- Do you record the calls?
- No. California requires all-party consent for call recording, so we log metadata only — whether the call was answered, by what, after how many rings, and whether three basic questions could be answered.
- Will individual businesses be named?
- Yes, and each will be offered its own results before publication. The purpose is a measurement of the market, not a complaint about any one operator.
- Who is paying for this study?
- Nobody. It is funded and conducted by BizRnR, which sells phone-answering software. That is a real interest and it is disclosed here rather than buried.
Page created 2026-07-30. Results pending.