Does Your Service End at the Cemetery…

          Good Service Never Ends.

  

 

 

 

By Quinn Eagan

 

     I can't remember how many times my father said, "Take care of families and they will take care of you." Taking care of families is our business. That's what we do.

    Unfortunately, many of us lost sight of the care we once provided. Often, because we were blinded by our own success, we stopped doing the things that truly helped the families we served. We lost contact after the funeral. But if you lose contact with the family there, you risk losing their loyalty and eventually their business. As families change, our market changes, and it is vitally important to keep doing the things that built your organization. Good service and preneed are two things that can protect your business.


   Losing a loved one is devastating. The funeral is a buffer against the grief. It brings extended family and friends together to honor and celebrate the deceased. We have always been there to comfort the family and provide professional, high-quality service. But our job shouldn't end there.

   The most difficult time for a family is after the funeral. In the days after the funeral, the friends slip back into their daily routine. The extended family members and children return home. The rush of support is removed and the immediate families are then left alone. This is when the reality of the loss becomes clear. This is when your presence is most important.

    The period after the funeral is a crucial time of transition when they must handle the tasks that come with losing a loved one.Almost no-one thinks about the day after the funeral. That's why we developed a "Family Care" plan. Tasks like insurance claims or restructuring bankaccounts need to be performed. This can be daunting for someone dealing with grief. And there are endless details that might slip the family's attention, like canceling credit cards. This is when your families need you and will appreciate you most.

   Providing family care is not a sales maneuver. It is an extension of your funeral home's atneed service that opens new lines of communication and care with the family. Closing a preneed sale is not your goal. Building your relationship with the family is. This is your chance to provide additional services that they will remember. The preneed rewards will come later.

   Many funeral directors receive more letters of appreciation for the care and guidance they provide after the ceremony than for the funeral itself, an unmistakable indication of customer satisfaction. Leo Dube, funeral director using the PFP system at Hathaway Funeral Homes in Fall River, Massachusetts, shared this letter from a client he visited after the funeral was over:

    "I wish to take the opportunity to offer a special word of thanks. As you know, when Lillian died it was the first time we had ever used Hathaway's. Having gone other places before, I never

 

expected you to stay in touch with me and actually assist me in taking care of all of those important details following my wife's funeral. But the thing with which I'm most pleased is that since I have made my arrangements in advance with you, my children will never have to go through this again.

You will be in my thoughts and prayers."

   Being there for people is crucial to your business. It's part of the care you provide and it's what builds your reputation as a funeral director. The additional time, effort and service you provide are the foundation of protecting and building business. Many funeral directors have already noticed the difference it makes.

   "It really is a wonderful service that is provided to the survivor and his or her family. The system of follow-up items to be completed with the survivor not only is beneficial economically for the survivor, but more importantly builds an incredible bond between our counselors and our funeral homes." says Funeral Director Scott Meierhoffer of Meierhoffer Family Funeral Service in Missouri. "I have not seen a better after-care follow-up program anywhere". After seeing the results, he expanded the Family Care plan into all of his locations using five trained counselors.

   Getting away from fundamental practices is a risky business. Most funeral directors honed their skills "taking care of families" from traditions of service-building habits as their family business was handed down from one generation to the next. Many took great pride in their reputation and quality of service. But with the changing times and priorities, has  your funeral home overlooked

helping families when they need it the most? Was there a short cut that took a path of cost-efficiency or reprioritizations that reduced or compromised the services provided?

   With my funeral business, I overlooked some of the important services that my grandfather did to build the business. After every funeral, he would meet with the family and review all the appropriate issues to help them get on with their lives. We took our eye off the ball. It seemed a lot easier to just give them a book that listed all the tasks that they would need to do. We started to do things with the primary purpose of selling preneed without finishing the previous job. You have probably heard of or used some form of a preneed approach for previously served families such as providing a questionnaire evaluating the funeral, delivering death certificates, sending series of follow up letters, or the rose program. These programs don't provide care. That's why none of them have delivered the results we expected. I have seen the same pattern in the other funeral homes that we work with in more than 20 states and across Canada.

   It sounds old fashioned, but there is no substitute for hard work. In reality, it doesn't require much time to provide the additional family care after the funeral. On average, it is less than three hours. An employee from the funeral home trained in post-service basics meets with the survivors - and children, too, before they go home - and helps them with the routine tasks that must be faced following a death.

 

    To assist the family, we have developed a checklist of 15 important items and a secondary list of more than 40 tasks that may need consideration. Some important tasks are changing the beneficiary on life insurance policies that the deceased was named as beneficiary, canceling car insurance, and filing for survivor benefits through social security, pensions, retirement funds. Even the smallest tasks, such as what to do with leftover medical supplies.

    The post-service counselor also is likely to help uncover items the family might have forgotten or overlooked. One counselor related a story to me about going through his checklist and asking if there were any life insurance policies for which a death claim needed to be prepared. The gentleman said there were no policies. In conversation, however, it came out that before his wife died they had refinanced everything. After checking the papers, they discovered that credit life was included on the loan. They had been dependent on two incomes. Luckily, the credit life stipulation paid off the loan, relieving the man of financial hardship during a very difficult time. There are many hidden values that a grieving family might not think to investigate. A counselor can guide them through the process. If you want to look at a complete checklist, I would be happy to share a copy of ours. (succeed@preneed.net, 1-800-529-7729).

    By offering this assistance, you will see other benefits. That investment of your time is far more valuable than what you spend on advertising or marketing. The two primary

reasons people choose a funeral home are from previous service to the family or referral from a friend. Just like a wedding or any other traditional service, your families will compare notes. When a widow starts getting out again and having coffee with her friends, they'll talk about her her experiences. If you were there for her through the entire experience, you better believe it will be noted. If someone else who used a competing funeral home didn't get this level of service, it will be noted. This will grow your business.

   "Whenever you get families telling their relatives and friends about the wonderful services you provided, you are doing GOOD!" says PFP client Funeral Director Michael Schoedinger at Schoedinger Funeral Home in Columbus, Ohio.

   What people remember about you is important. For years, we have served an older generation that was set in its ways. I call it the Bob Hope generation. They have maintained traditional attitudes about funeral services. And they were loyal. You treated them well and you knew you would see them again. But times are changing.

   Changes in families and society mean changes in our business. When our funeral business started about 150 years ago, the business saw no real loyalty changes. For three to six generations a family might have turned to the same provider. In the past 15-20 years, that has changed. People and families have become more mobile. The ties with traditional providers break down as

 

down as families move away or children reside elsewhere.

   Younger generations are also less committed to traditional services. They are choosing direct cremation at increasing rates. Competition is also increasing from alternative providers. They can't offer the same professional services you do, but how will families know that if you lose touch with them. This shows why it is especially important to make a preneed system part of your business. Post-service care is part of an on-going approach that shows you provide care, not a drive-through service.

   Taking care of families makes an invaluable impression. Word of mouth from friend to friend and generation to generation is crucial to your business. It is abstract feelings of comfort and familiarity that ultimately decide who a family turns to for service. And if you truly serve them, they will turn to you.

   "It's a true business builder and a differentiator for my funeral homes," says Blair Nelsen of Nelsen Funeral Homes in Richmond, Virginia. "It's hard work, but it sets us apart from our competitors."

   Providing care is our business. Your families depend on it and your business depends on it. I recall the care we once gave our families that we were honored to serve, not only during the arrangements, visitation, and service, but also after the burial. By returning to those values, we build a closer, stronger bond with the family that will result in more atneed and preneed business for our funeral homes. However, we should

remember that the most important aspect of providing this service is that we are taking care of the families. If we do this, we are twice blessed…and the families will take care of us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quinn Eagan comes from a family of funeral directors in New Orleans, Louisiana, and has focused his 25-year career on helping funeral homes achieve their preplanning goals. He is president of Preneed Funeral Programs, a provider of funeral home marketing systems that has sold more than $1 billion in preneed. For more information, call Eagan at 800-529-7729 or send e-mail message to succeed@preneed.net