In response to our posts, Is The Funeral Consumer’s Alliance More “Predatory” Than the Funeral Industry Itself? and FCA’s Slocum and I (Hopefully) Have a Civilized Debate, New York State funeral director Michelle Carter writes:

Mr. Slocum wrote: “You may not like FCA’s message of consumer education and empowerment, but that does not give you the right to make untrue statements about how we operate.”

As a funeral director, I’m sure I’m not alone in wishing that our client families in general were better-educated about the funeral process and what their options are. A significant portion of every dealing with every family involves explaining all the options available to them so they can make the most informed decision possible.

Unfortunately, the number of families we deal with who have been misinformed and are confused about their options and costs seems to be growing, not shrinking. I blame part of this on the numerous websites and organizations like the FCA that make broad statements like, “Well, in most places you can do X, Y and Z…” but make no effort to provide information about specific statues. Every state has different laws and options vary significantly depending on where you are.

Like Tim, I also take exception with the FCA’s apparent belief that “low-cost” and “good” go hand in hand when it comes to funeral service. While that is sometimes true, it’s also true (as in every other industry) that you often get what you pay for.

If cost were the only thing people were concerned with, we’d probably all be driving around in Geo Metros. However, every individual and every family has different tastes, desires, and needs, and all of those things will influence how much they spend, and what they spend it on.

And I wonder why there is no mention in the FCA literature I’ve seen that the increases in funeral prices over the last 25 years have not kept pace with inflation. 25 years ago, funeral homes made around 11.5% profit on each funeral, according to American Funeral Director Magazine, compared to the roughly 6.12% in 2007. Expenses have grown 23% more than income has. By comparison, the average new home price has increased over 264% during that same period.

Mr. Slocum wrote, “If the worst elements of funeral service don’t reflect your business practices, why are you personally offended? Don’t you agree those elements should be exposed so honest businesspeople can separate themselves from scoundrels? You could do a lot more to help that cause by working with us than by snarking at a consumer charity.”

I agree with Tim on this point: in our capitalist society, the funeral homes or directors that take advantage of families, charge exorbitantly high prices or are otherwise bad will not stay in business that way for long. Word of mouth travels fast. However, when you’re part of an industry that gets slammed, of course you’re going to take offense. It’s the same as when good police officers, good mechanics, and good doctors are offended by those who paint them with the same brush as they paint the bad apples. It puts you in the position of being guilty until proven innocent.

But I’m also skeptical of the assertion that there are funeral directors who are giving extra discounts to members of the FCA. The funeral home’s expenses will remain the same, regardless of how much of a discount they offer. So are they making that up in overall higher prices? Are they charging non-member families more to make up for it? Is that fair?

I knew of a funeral director (no longer in business) whose GPL showed outlandishly high prices. However, he offered families a discount of 15-20% if they paid their bills before the day of the funeral. Personally, I’d rather work with someone whose pricing is straightforward and not so gimmicky.

As someone who sits on the board of a local charity, I also have issues with any organization that calls itself a charity, but spends so much of its income on overhead. The Red Cross has gotten flack for spending just $0.10 of every dollar on administrative costs, but it appears that for the FCA, that amount is significantly higher.

I think we can all agree that we want our consumer families to make the best, most well-informed decisions possible. The question is whether or not they are hearing all sides of the story.

Michelle Carter is the former owner of the Center For Transition, a grief counseling and funeral consulting company.  A licensed funeral director, Michelle is now the Assistant Manager of the E.O. Curry Funeral Home in Peekskill, NY.

A recent article, “Is the Future Really So Grim?” by Michelle Carter elicited a reasoned response from Dale Clock of the Life Story Network of funeral homes.  Here’s how Michelle responded to his remarks:

I agree with what you’ve said- it is going to be a challenge. I am a bit familiar with the Life Story network, and it seems as though our philosophies and the services we offer are quite similar.

As for the impact all of this work and innovation is having on funeral directors, I think we’re going to have to find a balance between what we’re willing and able to do on our own, what we can farm out, and what we’re simply not able to do.

Here in NY, it’s both a blessing and a curse that we’re not legally allowed to serve food or drinks in the funeral home. Organizing a reception for me usually just involves a few phone calls.

I served my residency at an independent firm that handled nearly 600 calls the year I was there. I was on call 6 days/week. I lost count of the number of 12+ hour days I put in, got called out in the middle of the night, only to get little sleep and do it all over again.

We were fortuante enough to have a phenomenal office staff who did a lot of the more time-consuming clerical work, like scanning photos for tributes, ordering supplies, etc.

Now I don’t have that luxury, and I think most of us are in the same boat. We really are going to have to weigh what services we’re willing to offer, can handle offering, and whether the return is worth it. While I may choose to promote certain offerings over others, my families are aware that we can accomodate most requests, or offer a reasonable or even better substiution.

Having to do more with less is a trend that isn’t unique to our industry. After all, we no longer get meals on airline flights, we check out our own items at the grocery store, and fewer social workers are handling a more extensive caseload, etc., etc.

There’s no reason funeral directors have to do more than we’re able or willing to do. If you can’t stand video tributes or hate making memorial candles, then don’t.

But if you don’t offer it, someone else will.

I attended visitation at another funeral home not long ago for a family friend. The deceased’s daughter-in-law had recently lost one of her parents, and she had a DVD tribute made at the funeral home local to her family.

When my family friend died, his family used that other funeral home to create a DVD for this man. Sure, it was less work for the funeral home handling the funeral, but it also meant less revenue. Even worse, when impressed mourners told the family they enjoyed watching the tribute (on a TV the family brought from home), the family members often replied, “Yes, we got it from XYZ Funeral Home, isn’t it great?”

I agree that we’re moving from a merchandise-based industry to an experience-based one but it’s not going to happen overnight. The only way to do it, however, is to do it, and let people see it and appreciate it.

After all, we didn’t move from home-based funerals to funeral home-based funerals overnight either. There were a few families who gave the funeral home a shot, and it was only from others seeing it done, that they concept began to spread.

So yes Dale, I’d say we’re in for quite a ride.

Dale Clock, of Clock Life Story Funeral Home in Michigan responds to Michelle Carter’s latest article “Is the Future Really So Grim?” 

Michelle:

You make some valid points.  The future isn’t that grim. But the future is going to be tough.  You are an independent funeral planner.  I’m guessing you don’t have much overhead but your car and a phone.  You take as much work as you can get but could always use more.  It’s easy to say “just do it’. Plan the fancy event, do the golf course, bring the favorite chair.  But the reality is it takes a lot of time and effort to do all of that.  It takes manpower, creativity and a whole different bunch of skill sets that most funeral directors don’t have.  It’s also a major challenge to do it day in and day out for firms of our size because “doing it” has to depend on a system and not just one person with a creative mind.  I agree that those kind of things need to be done but the hard part is transitioning to where we need to be from where we have been for so long a time.

I have 3 funeral homes in a Midwestern blue collar town, do 400 + calls a year, 7 vehicles, over 50,000 square feet of buildings ranging in age from 100 years old to 10, a staff of 20 plus people.  I have done receptions for 20 years (it’s good to do those but it’s not going to make you a ton of money).  Tried every casket show room setup there is.  I am now part of the Life Story Network which I really believe can transform funeral service.  And everyday is a struggle.  I have gone from 25% cremation to 50% cremation in 10 years.  I have trimmed my staff down to the bear minimum just to make ends meet while still trying to offer the latest and greatest that funeral service has to dish out.

My funeral directors are the best in the world.  They all have 20+ years experience and try their hardest to adapt to all the new stuff that I’m throwing at them.  The families absolutely gush over our Life Story experience and we all can see how meaningful it is to them.  But after days of typing in Life Story notes, scanning photo’s, burning DVD’s, printing color Life Story folders, downloading new music, setting up for receptions, cleaning up after the family spends a comfortable 2 hours in the reception center, putting cremains in jewelry, taking fingerprints for Thumbies, ordering customized urns from the 1000 choices in the catalogue…… in addititon to still doing all the other stuff we have always done like embalm bodies, dress and casket, meet with families, set up flowers, run visitations, conduct services , processions to the cemetery…. all most of us can do is collapse at home with an adult beverage and fall asleep in front of the TV.

It’s no wonder so many FD’s long for the old days when things were more routine and there weren’t so many options.  It’s not that we don’t want to do the new stuff.  It’s that we still have to do the old stuff in addition to the new stuff because we all serve such a broad range of people.  To do things right we almost need to split into two businesses; one that does things the old way and one that embraces the new stuff.  But at this time it seems impossible to separate things because there just isn’t enough volume or income.  It’s Catch 22…We need to do the new stuff to make money but we need more money to do the new stuff.

So the best we can do is hang in there while the funeral industry changes from a materialistic based income (casket, vaults and markers) to an emotional based income.  One where we get paid for helping preserve memories and creating experiences. And the sooner we can get the public to learn that there is value in those emotions. The sooner this will all happen.

Dale Clock
Clock Life Story Funeral Home

EDITOR’S NOTE:  When he submitted this letter, Dale was unaware that Michelle had recently taken a position as Assistant Manager of the E.O. Curry Funeral Home in Peekskill, NY.  She’s also sold her grief counseling center to focus on her work at the funeral home.

Michelle Carter, one of our “Be Our Guest” contributors just responded to the article, Don Shell Shares “A Monumental ‘Undertaking’?” by another one of our contributors.  Here’s her response:

With all due respect, Mr. Shell, I think you may have misunderstood Mr. Lynch.

Yes, he rails against personalization, but that’s because so many funeral directors sell personalization like a commodity instead of making something personal. For example, my dad is a golfer. I can personalize his funeral by getting a casket with golf-themed corners. Or, I can make it personal by having his golfing buddies act as pall bearers. Which is more meaningful?

And I have to say I agree with Mr. Lynch that there is great value in allowing families to have the comfort of a ritual they’re familiar with at a difficult time. And they did show at least one direct cremation, so obviously not everyone followed the ritual Mr. Lynch likes so much.

If you watched any of the additional footage, or read the viewer comments on the PBS website, you’ll see many of the families talked about how comforted they were seeing their loved ones looking so peaceful and beautiful. I doubt anyone could say that Mrs. Verrino’s eulogy wasn’t heartfelt, meaningful, or healing. And I don’t think anyone expressed displeasure at how things were handled.

The fact is, that documentary only showed short glimpses of the visitations and funerals, so we really don’t have any idea how much of a family’s story was or was not told.

I think the important thing, for us as funeral directors, is to make sure that we are able to do whatever the family wishes. A family’s story should be able to be told regardless of whether the family chooses a full-service burial, a direct cremation, or a reception at a local restaurant.

Yes, more and more people are choosing non-traditional services, and we need to meet those needs. But we’re only harming ourselves if we disregard or rail against those families that want the traditional services they’re accustomed to.

A licensed funeral director, Michelle Carter is also a funeral consultant and grief counselor from Westchester County, New York.

Through her company, New York Center for Transition, she provides counseling for those who have recently been diagnosed with diseases, grief counseling for those who have experienced a death and funeral consulting to families in need.Michelle is working toward opening her own funeral home.

We’ve enjoyed some great articles from our newest guest columnist, Michelle Carter.  But it seems she’s not without her detractors.

An anonymous reader, who provided the email address blankname1000@yahoo.com and neglected to sign his/her remarks, left this comment for Ms. Carter: 

Great Michelle! Bravo as well. So I guess you missed the CE class where Debbie Orecki told us that even though you are a Funeral Director licensed by New York State, YOU CANNOT DO FUNERALS WITHOUT A BUSINESS REGISTRATION. Wait, sorry, I forgot you are only licensed since 2006. Let’s forget your stupidity for a minute and that you actually posted this information on the net that you operate sans registration, lets focus more on the idiot that rents a chapel to you AND assumes the liablity of your actions by putting his business’s name and registration number on a death certificate. Sweety, wait till you screw up one day with a family and they wanna make a complaint. Better yet, explain to this man’s insurance carrier who the hell you are when you go for a deposition at their lawyers office. Explain to Ms. Orecki that you offered them a laughing stick and see what she says, but let me know after the tears dry ok? Perhaps a freelance entrepreneur like this is the reason not only the volume is down with the so called “legitamate” funeral homes (oxymoron) and the genius funeral braintrust out there such as MFDA and NFDA can’t understand why, but thats also why Paul has to scramble around to find a cheap casket manufacturer and keep his vendors that has put up with this guy’s whims and idisyncrasies for years “honest”. Of course “honest” translates into “how cheap can you do it for” and that ranges from your trade embalmer to your livery man , right down to you buying tissues for the funeral home in wal mart.
So I guess by not giving a family a GPL, Statement of Goods and Services Selected, and Customer’s Designation of Intentions Form, thats doing them a service huh???? And you give them your cell phone number to call them in the middle of the night???? So if it goes to voice mail instead of an answering service and the body is in a house thats easing their comfort too huh??? Don’t you find it just a little embarassing to ask whoever front’s you the following: “I have a call, do you mind if I use the registration for the death certificate?” . Better yet, if a family refers someone to you (which aint happening), isn’t it a nice feeling when they hand someone who dosent know you your business card that you had made at Staples with your pager # attached to it? Actually, I shouldn’t make as much out of this as I have, you aren’t good for more than 3 calls anyway. I laugh how you have the same last name as another Funeral Home in the area where you operate. You wouldn’t be capitolizing on that especially because that said firm is a corporate affiliate would you?? Tsk Tsk Michelle. Not a good example.
Time to call Bakers Pride and price equipment for turning chapel A into a pizzeria and forget parasites and their crap like this.
Thomas Lynch, another beauty, happens to be right about associations keeping quiet. They are useless. Beyond useless to be honest. They keep quiet about Georgia and the whole Joe Nicelli thing because those same NFDA fat cats not only look at a family and ask for $4200 for a direct cremation, but put the body in a used air tray.

If anyone needs me i’ll be in the corner playing with my laughing stick singing cum by ya.

When contacted for comment, Michelle responded with the following: 

Well, who ever you are, commenter, you clearly must know me personally.  That surprises me, since I’ve had the good fortune of working with some wonderful individuals so far in my career.  If you have an issue, or feel like I’ve slighted you in some way, please contact me directly at Michelle dot Carter at gmail dot com, so we can resolve it professionally and privately.

In response to your comments, let me assure you that everything I do is well above board.  I’ve had several conversations with Ms. Orecki to be sure the I’s are dotted and the T’s are crossed.  I didn’t go into the minutia of how I operate for this guest blog, for the sake of brevity, and because I didn’t think it would interest Tim’s readers.  (For those readers not in New York, Deborah Orecki is the head of the Bureau of Funeral Directing, a division of the NYS Department of Health, which regulates the funeral industry.)

Technically, whichever funeral home the family chooses to work through is the one that ‘gets’ the call.  I work as an independent contractor or agent, much like your trade embalmer or part-time outside help.  At the end of the year, I file a 1099 just like they would.   My families do get a GPL, Statement of Goods and Services Selected, and Customer’s Designation of Intentions Form from the funeral home just like they would with any funeral.  It’s not much different from hiring someone on a temporary basis to keep an eye on things while you’re on vacation, or handle an out-of-town call for you.

It’s a win/win situation.  My families have me involved in the funeral process, creating the service they desire, and the funeral home gets revenue with substantially less work on their end.  I haven’t had any issues with it so far.  After all, the fact is that someone is going to handle that funeral.  Would you rather have that revenue yourself, or have it go to the guy down the street?

It’s also prudent to point out that grief counseling is not regulated by Ms. Orecki’s office, and one does not need a funeral home registration to provide those services.  Very few certified grief counselors are also funeral directors.

Yes, I do give clients my cell phone number, which rings to a redundant land line so there’s no chance of going to voicemail.  If a family calls me at 2 in the morning, they don’t tell an answering service their loved one died, they speak to me directly.  I don’t know of many other funeral directors who could say the same thing.

And yes, I do have the same last name as a pair of funeral homes in the area. I’ve actually found that to be more of a liability than an asset.  I have no desire to be affiliated with a large corporation, or to be perceived that way, and I make that very clear to anyone I come in contact with.   That said, I can’t change my name or my hometown, and I think most people are smart enough to make the distinction between the two.  It’s been more than a decade since anyone in my family has been affiliated with that firm, so I think people have caught on by now.   I should point out that all of my clients so far have chosen to work with the independent firms in the area.

And finally, in response to your comment about call volume going down:  There certainly are firms in this area that are handling fewer calls than they have in years past.  There are also firms who have experienced an up tick in call volume.  I would attribute this to two things.  First, a large segment of the population in this neck of the woods are relocating to the warmer climates of South Carolina, Florida, Arizona, etc., and subsequently dying there.  Second, I think consumers are more savvy these days. If they’re unhappy or not completely satisfied, I think they’re more willing to bring their business elsewhere these days than they were in years past.  I hardly think this is a situation that is unique to the Metro New York area.

Anyway, the point of my last post was that we, as an industry, are being given a great tool to help shape and change the public’s perceptions of who we are and what we do.  The documentary The Undertaking featuring Thomas Lynch airs tonight on PBS.  For it to have the impact it should, we need to work together.  It will benefit all of us.

And this is the part where I comment.

To my anonymous reader, I can only offer my sincere condolences on what has to be a pretty bad situation.  You are clearly perturbed about something.  Somehow I doubt you’d be so bold with your rude remarks in a more public setting or a place where your identity could not be so easily masked.

I’m not a fan of ad hominem attacks (the kind where a person’s name is attacked, rather than their actions) and I don’t allow them on the blog.  How do I do that?  By moderating comments and only allowing those that are relevant to the discussion.

So why did I print this one?  Because in between all the rude personal cutdowns is also an important question:  how can Michelle serve families without operating a funeral home.  I think she’s answered that sufficiently.  If anyone refutes her assertion that she operates within the law of New York State, please, let me know.

If you choose to comment on the blog, make sure you include your email address so I can converse with you.  I’d love to have a more accurate account of our anonymous reader’s issues with Michelle, but I can’t, because he/she chose to purposefully mask his/her identity.

I strongly support the rights of my readers to share their opinions, not only when the fit with what I or another columnist has written, but especially when they offer an opposing viewpoint.  Unfortunately, taking a rude tone, referring to the writer’s work as “stupidity” and demeaning a female writer by calling her “sweety” will lead me to believe that the complainer is actually the one with a defect.