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Page A17
JANUARY 2015
FUNERAL HOME & CEMETERY NEWS
S ec t i on A
Casto Funeral Home
Purchases New Hearse
Passare helps to Build Stronger Family
Relationships and Streamline Business
Operations
SAN FRANCISCO,CA—
Passare, Inc.,
a trusted and relevant source for End-of-
Life planning and management, has an-
nounced that Cincinnati-based
Spring
Grove Funeral Homes
and
Albuquerque-based
French
Funerals and Cremations
have selected the company’s
End-of-Life Management
Platform to run their busi-
ness operations more effi-
ciently and effectively, in
addition to building deeper
relationships with families.
Founded in 1845 as a non-
profit, nondenominational
corporation,
Spring Grove
Cemetery
and
Gwen
Mooney Funeral Homes
serves approximately 2,000
families annually. Regarded
as one of the most success-
ful and professionally-run
funeral homes in the coun-
try, Spring Grove operates a
family of related companies
that includes four funeral
home locations, in addition
to the historic Spring Grove
Cemetery and Arboretum,
a National Historic Land-
mark.
Founded in 1907, French
Funerals and Cremations is
New Mexico’s largest and
oldest family-owned funer-
al home, serving approxi-
mately 2,000 families annu-
ally through five locations.
The funeral home was one
of the earliest adopters of
Passare’s innovative solu-
tion—providing insights
that have been instrumen-
tal in refining and driving
product development.
According to
Gary Frey-
tag,
president and chief
executive officer of Spring
Grove Cemetery and Arbo-
retum, investing in Passare
was a natural fit with their
customer-focused approach
of providing greater trans-
parency, convenience, and
simplicity to the service ex-
perience. In particular, the
independent funeral home
praised Passare’s online
Collaboration Center for
its ability to fundamentally
change the nature of work-
ing relationships with fami-
lies.
According to feedback
from both Spring Grove’s
and French’s funeral di-
rectors, providing families
with the option of enter-
ing required data and ex-
ploring all of the various
choices prior to face-to-
face meetings has resulted
in more open and produc-
tive sessions. In addition to
shifting the focus to higher-
value discussion topics, fu-
neral directors also report-
ed that the Collaboration
Center dramatically reduc-
es any perceived sales pres-
sure since families will often
come with their own sug-
gestions without having to
be presented with options.
“Since the beginning, our
profession has relied on a
more traditional process of
having families come into
our locations to engage our
processes and the range of
options,” explained
D.F. “Duffy” Swan
,
chairman and part owner of French Funer-
als and Cremations. “With Passare, we’re
EVANS,WV—
Pictured are
James W. Casto, Jr.,
second
generation funeral director and
J W Casto III,
third gen-
eration funeral director of
Casto Funeral Home
taking
delivery of their new 2014 Lincoln Federal MKT Strat-
ford Hearse. Delivery was made by
Conaway Hearse &
Limousine
in Uniontown, PA.
James William Casto
and his wife,
Lila Roberta (Bak-
er) Casto
established Casto Funeral Home in 1953,
which now serves residents from all corners of Jackson
County, Mason County and portions of Wood, Wirt,
Kanawha, Roane and Meigs County in Ohio.