Times have changed. Have your services?
    If you are offering the same type of service you always have, whether to families at your funeral home, cemetery or crematory, then it’s time to step into the present day. Today, you must offer all options to every family.
    Today, you must be more than a funeral director or cemetery consultant; you must be a funeral event planner or cemetery event planner. Staying with the times allows the families you serve to have a unique event to celebrate a life lived.
    Consider other funeral homes in your area: Are they offering balloon or dove releases at the cemetery, or having a bagpiper play as people arrive? Why don’t you? These kinds of modern services allow your firm to stand out. The general public will take notice. And, of course, these services generate incremental income.
    More than 40 years of service in the death care profession, and I still hear funeral directors say they’ve performed just a few unique funerals. So what were all the others? The key here is asking families the correct questions and listening to the answers to create a celebration of life service unique to that individual.
    One of the major reasons we have so many limited services – or no service at all – when a death occurs is that we as death care professionals have not been offering the type of service people actually want.
    For example, many people have no church affiliation and don’t want a religious service. Do you tell these people we have a “rent-a-minister” that will do your service? Were you listening at all? In these cases, you should offer a celebrant on staff, contract out with one to do the service, or have a staff member that could be the master of ceremony and coordinate the event for the family.
    Another issue is obtaining giveaway items to memorialize the deceased’s life. Whether the items are personalized wine glasses, engraved golf balls, golf tees or an item from Party City, have you considered where these purchases may be made so you have answers ready? If the deceased was a “Parrot Head” and loved Jimmy Buffet, why not have Hawaiian leis for the guests, request in the obit to attend wearing a Hawaiian shirt, have Buffet music playing and even have the service based on a Buffet song?
    Assuming the role of a funeral event planner allows you to create an event that the family, friends and community of the deceased will remember. This increases the family’s satisfaction and makes the entire process more unique, more personal. Of course, this also makes your firm stand out and can increase your market share and bottom line – but only if every family is offered the chance to have a personalized celebration of life service.
    To accomplish this, you must employ the right employees who are willing to spend the extra time to be a funeral event planner. And, of course, those employees will need training to build up to funeral event planners. You may need to rearrange your staff to different positions if they are unable to give your families what is needed in today’s death care profession.
    Remember: Most people only have one service, a funeral. And if we don’t do it correctly we are not doing our job for the family requesting our services.