JEFF CHANCELLOR
What are the most difficult questions you have to answer at the funeral home? Are they about price? Are they sensitive questions about the process of embalming? Are they questions that demand you to justify the need for your memorial offerings?
More and more frequently I hear from funeral professionals that families are just not interested in having funerals and are just plain not interested in embalming.
They tell me that families are quite sure about what they don’t want yet not clear on what they do want. Ask yourself: is what they don’t want exactly what you are trying to sell them at your firm?
I certainly do not see the future of funeral service through jaundice eyes nor am I wearing a pair of rose-coloured glasses. I do however clearly see a future for funeral service filled with profitable opportunities to serve and meaningful products to provide to families in grief.
As I travel, I observe three broad types of funeral providers. There are the ultra-successful operators who seem to have it all. They have the market well in hand. They have very happy staff. They have very happy clients and very happy owners or shareholders. They have nice fleets of cars and lovely equipment and very professional facilities benefiting from all the latest technologies.
I see a second type of operator who is enjoying a relatively stable clientele desiring low cost or minimal type services. These folks seem to be quite busy serving clients with little or no desire for more. It is a volume game. Low price requires high volume. Low price requires low overhead, hence the minimal facilities and equipment and technology. Are they as happy? From my point of view I would say no. They seem busy. They seem cordial. They do not seem overly happy with their work or client experiences or income; perhaps just satisfied.
The last group of funeral providers I see are just barely keeping their heads above water. They want to provide more but do not have the revenue streams to compete with the ultrasuccessful operators nor the low overhead to compete with the minimal providers. They do not enjoy happy staff, happy customers or owners and due to the disconnect between the clients’ needs and the business’ needs, they are in a precarious financial position.
Considering that the death rate is still 100 per cent and there is no end in sight, why are all funeral professionals not thriving?
I believe the answer is as easy as one, two, three! The ultrasuccessful funeral professionals have systemized or compartmentalized the value of their services and products in smaller, easier to understand and digest bites. Bites that resonate well with the consumer and build inclusive thinking.
So what in the heck does that mean Jeff? It means they have simplified the choices for a client family based on the order and timing of the experience that the client family may be going through at the time. They promote being inclusive of the whole family, community and business’ needs in their offerings.
When we boil it down to the most basic elements there are three things that most families in grief need. The first need is very urgent, very private and very personal and we do not know exactly how long it will take.
People need to see their loved ones. I am sure you have seen it many times. People come to the funeral home to make arrangements and the first words out of their mouth are “Where’s mom now?” A popular second question from the family is “Can I see her now?” This indicates to me that the customer feels a sense of urgency to see mom and understand where she is. To see her, to touch her or to talk to her.
How many times have you had to stop whatever you are doing to hurry and retrieve someone from refrigeration and hastily prepare them for presentation to the unexpected viewers?
People feel what they see. The quality of our work makes all the difference! I am sure many readers will agree that when the remains looks great the family is ultra-appreciative. Once families see their loved ones looking good the praise begins. The texture of our client relationships becomes more intimate. We become their creative partner and enter the inner circle of trust. They love us!
After people see the well-prepared remains do they not generally heave a sigh of relief and say “I am so glad that I saw her” or “You have got to see mom! She looks so much better than at the hospital”?
Conversely when the remains does not look good we enter into a strained client relationship. Every detail now undergoes greater scrutiny from the family and a sense of distrust or disease develops.
Our daily experiences are proof of or serve to reinforce these perspectives of basic human needs. People need to see, touch and in many cases talk to or even yell at the person who died. People feel better after these experiences. Viewing of the body when well prepared and presented is a form of psychological first aid. The ultra-successful funeral providers understand they are in the business of making people feel better.
Oftentimes we as funeral arrangers bow to the most dominant personalities at the point of sale. Instead the ultra-successful professionals I have met are masters at empowering the most dominant personalities to do the right thing. The right thing, slowing down, viewing and having ceremony are coincidentally the best things for the client, the community and our businesses too.
They do empowerment by educating the dominate family member in their role and responsibilities to present the best and healthiest most healing experience for their “whole” family.
A simple way to frame this idea is comparing families in grief to being like a search party. Each family member is searching to feel better. Different people go through this experience at different speeds. Search parties can move only as quickly as the slowest searcher. It takes a lot more time for some people to accept loss and move forward. Are you giving your clients enough time and space for this process?
A nice way to explain clinical care to families is to share what you experience every day in your funeral business – to explain that people feel better when they spend time with their loved ones. That the better the loved ones look the better they feel. That as hosts for the family through this experience they want everyone to feel better and here is how.
Families frequently feel a sense of urgency to get things done in a rapid fashion. This sense of urgency causes us to overlook some family members who may really need more time.
During loss the closest family members need privacy, space and time to catch up to the situation. If we go from loss directly into being bombarded with people in a small space and a tight timeline, we risk imprinting their memory with a bad and perhaps overwhelming experience.
If we rush step one, step two will be a blurry or negative experience resulting in a bad memory; a memory which may very well turn into a dislike of funerals. Once the whole immediate family has had enough time and the private opportunity to accept their individual loss it is time to move forward towards step two.
A nice way to explain this to a family is to tell them there is no rush; the first and most urgent thing is that family’s acceptance. Once they are ready, we can move on to step two.
Step two is very public – a memorial event, a farewell party, perhaps a funeral service. An opportunity, a place and a time for the community to come together with the grieving family and demonstrate support to and to be supported by the family. I’ve heard it successfully explained in this way: “I’m sure your family has already received sympathy calls, food deliveries and questions about the service.” When the family answers in the affirmative the conversation evolves to “Now is the time to repay those kindnesses and expressions of care by hosting your mom’s friends and relatives with a farewell event.”
I recently heard a funeral provider respond to a client who said they do not want a funeral with “We haven’t had a funeral in this building for 10 years or more.” “Really?” replied the family. “For the last 10 years or more we have been providing an opportunity for families to gather and say farewell and support each other with a mixture of activities designed to make everybody feel better and become a closer family.”
The creativity and production value these fine professionals bring to the experience can hardly be called a funeral and certainly cannot be explained and organized while everyone is feeling stressed or bad or overwhelmed.
Memorial events have become the new family reunions. These events clearly bring families closer together. I have met precious few families who are not interested in being closer and reinforcing their familial bonds.
Once the very public phase of remembering has finished it is time for step three. Step three is very permanent or lasting and it is: how do we memorialize the ones we love?
Permanent memorialization can take many forms. It can be at a cemetery or columbarium, a personalized urn at home or a bespoke piece of memorial jewelry worn to remember that special person.
The ultra-successful providers I see do not lump each of these important elements, phases or activities into one value proposition called a funeral or one process called embalming. They have successfully broken these processes into easy-to understand steps that resonate with the client in grief while respecting the needs of the family, the community and worth mentioning, the funeral service business.
So let me ask you, are your difficult questions as easy to answer as one, two, three? If they are not, perhaps it is time to decide what kind of end-of-life provider you want to become.
ABOUT JEFF
Jeff serves as Director of Education, Training and Research for H.S. Eckels & Company. He is an experienced embalmer, funeral director, crematory operator, vfuneral celebrant, consultant and author.
His over 100 articles have been published in more than a dozen funeral service periodicals and trade magazines around the world.
Jeff has consulted on mortuary & cemetery design, construction and operational projects in Canada, the United States, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Russia and the Dominican Republic.
Jeff has lectured, demonstrated and consulted with funeral professionals, associations, governments and developers in over forty countries on four continents. Jeff resides in Arizona and continues to travel extensively as a funeral service lecturer and educator.