I met Spencer and Ryan in person at the Kentucky Funeral Directors Association convention in June, but Spencer has been a long-time reader of the blog.

Now they’re not just our friends, but our newest sponsor.

Hilltop.net offers some pretty impressive funeral home website software.  In fact, if you can format a simple letter in Microsoft Word, you can use Hilltop’s software to create a beautiful website for your funeral home.

Spencer, Ryan and their staff will help you with the initial planning of your site, including decisions to do with colors, photos of your funeral home and ad copy for the pages you select.  They’ll also help you choose a template from their large collection, which they’ll then customize with your colors and photos.

After that, it’s easy for you or a member of your staff to customize the site and add obituaries.

That’s right:  you can add obituaries at anytime you like!  You don’t have to email the text and photo to someone else to enter for you and the photo can be uploaded at it’s current size.  No cropping or re-sizing required.

I tested their product at the Kentucky convention and was able to add an obituary and photo (start to finish) in less than 2 minutes.

The only thing that could make this a better deal is a low price, and boy, does Hilltop.net deliver.

Sign up for a year and you pay just $29.95 a month!

Want to know more?  Click on the sponsor link at the bottom of this post and others during the next few weeks.

The blog, Thank You Note Wording, has some great tips for funeral thank you notes, such as:

Dear __________,

The picture you sent us of __________________ is wonderful. It reminds us of so many good times we have all shared. Thank you for sharing a part of her.

With love,

_______________

Why not write some examples for your own client families and give them out with each box of thank you notes you distribute?

It only takes a few minutes put these together (get your staff to suggest their own versions or work with a local hospice or grief support group) and will benefit your client families for years.

One warning:  make a master copy or keep the handout in a computer file so you can print or copy fresh, crisp versions each time you need more.  Handing out a grainy, distorted photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy makes you look sloppy and unprofessional.

During a recent Google-rampage (where I search for news stories and blogs about the industry) I found a disturbing story, passed off as news. 

Read the story here:  ‘Predatory’ Funeral Industry Comes Under Fire

The headline itself made me take notice.  It reads like a real news story.  I expected to find that some congressional hearing had been scheduled or a lawmaker is calling for a review of the industry.

Now, we all know that anytime a politician wants to score some cheap publicity or distract from something else he/she has done wrong, aides pull out the list of industries that people don’t understand and start making crazy allegations.

But this ‘article’ is even worse, as it’s nothing more than fluff designed to look like an actual story.

From the Newser article:

The funeral industry preys on bereft customers, artificially raising prices and taking custody of bodies it has no right to handle, argues a watchdog group. The Funeral Consumers Alliance aims to push fair and environmentally friendly death-care practices, Newsweek reports. “Funeral corporations use predatory sales tactics and aggressive marketing to get people to spend on services they don’t need,” says the group’s director.

By invoking “Newsweek,” the article aims to sell it’s own validity.  The writer relies upon quotes and arguments from the “group’s director” without ever naming the director.  Even worse, the writer uses an old tactic:  stating a premise early (”preys on beret customers…”) while waiting until the end of a long indictment to offset it with a qualifier (”argues a watchdog group”).

Here’s the response I posted in the comment section of the story:

The alliance director (Joshua Slocum, though he is not named in the article) says “I want people to be shocked.”  

Maybe that’s because his organization’s 2006 tax return shows a $28,000+ loss and almost $120,000 in salaries/benefits paid to employees and officers.  

The same scrutiny applied to hardworking funeral directors should also be trained on a group that exists to create jobs for people who stir up public fear in order to generate more donations and membership fees, which then pay for higher salaries for the people who stir up public fear in order to keep the cycle going.  

The truth of the funeral industry is that while scarcely more than 10% of the funeral homes are owned by public companies (which are owned by stockholders), the vast majority of funeral homes are local companies run by people who get up at 2-in-the-morning to serve their neighbors during difficult times.  

Funeral directors aren’t nameless, faceless millionaires cackling while counting all the money made from your loved one’s death. They are the men and women who help you plan your loved one’s funeral. They’re the ones who answer the phone at midnight and miss their kids’ piano recitals to serve your family in a time of need.  

Of course, you should never pay more than you’re willing to spend for services, but that’s why there’s competition in the marketplace.  

Let’s stop pretending that Mr. Slocum has a monopoly on “righteousness” and “concern for the public.” His livelihood depends just as much on people having bad funeral experiences as a local funeral director’s livelihood depends upon good experiences.

Most of us read stories like this and shake our heads, hoping that the general public doesn’t fall for these trumped up reports.  I think that we’re being just a little bit foolish.  Mr. Slocum has nothing better to do with his time than stir up more unwarranted concern and fear, in an attempt to garner more memberships, sell more books (over 5300 publications sold in 2006) and solicit more donations which pay his salary.

The general public needs to know that there are tens of thousands of local, family-owned funeral homes that work hard every day (and night) to see to every detail at their time of need.  And the employees, managers and officers of just over 2000 corporately-owned firms are providing similar services.

The employees of the Funeral Consumer’s Alliance rely upon donations from scared individuals to pay their bills.  Funeral professionals rely upon satisfied and comforted neighbors to keep their families fed. 

One group peddles fear and scare tactics.  The other offers hope, comfort and peace-of-mind.

Which is more noble?

Here’s the link to the longer Newsweek story that quotes Mr. Slocum, with attribution:  A Serious Undertaking

eCoffins display at the 2007 NFDA Convention

Lots of talk in the media about “going green” and the ways that companies can reach out to the “green” market.

But what does it mean?

Yes, offering ECoffins is one good idea, and making sure that cremation is an alternative for your clients is another, but what happens when you don’t make sure that everything is green?  Here’s an example from the blog, Long Live the Village Green by W.S. Duke:

In this case, a cremation was decided upon, thus avoiding the toxic chemicals and the waste of resources that go into caskets. When I went to the funeral home to pick up the cremated remains, they were given to me in a large plastic container. Naturally, I was in no mood to object. I guess I was expecting a cardboard box, which would have been something much more environmentally friendly to put in the ground.

I’d suggest that any attempt to offer “Green services” be proceeded by a green evaluation by an expert.  How can you find a “green expert” or a guide to help you do it yourself?  Check out these resources:

EWS Green Business Consultants

Dori Merifield, Green Business Consultant

Joel Makower, Green Business Consultant

Green Home Guide

Green Business Guide from the U.S. Government

Green People (guide to green-friendly businesses and products)

Greening Your Business by the National Resources Defense Council

Greening Your Business:  A Primer for Small Companies by Greenbiz.com

50 Ways to Green Your Business by Fast Company

Metcalf Mortuary in St. George, Utah offered the sign above as encouragement to marathon runners.

A humorous and effective way to publicize their firm, the sign uses their logo (at the bottom) to convey the dignity of their firm, but a more playful, cartoonish font for the message “Don’t Even Think About Stopping!” to imply the humor.

Via Elite Feet

We’re busy packing the car for tomorrow’s big trip.  We leave at 6:30 am for Atlanta (lunch with a friend) and Chattanooga (dinner theatre and a bed), before heading to Louisville on Sunday.

Regular updates from the road as time and WiFi allows.

American Airlines is working double-time to tell their discount passengers that they’re not welcome.  How?  They’re using the not-so-subtle additional charge for basic services.

Starting soon, AA is charging discount passengers a $15 fee to check their first bag.  This is on top of the $20 fee that most airlines are charging for a second checked bag.

Photo Courtesy of Flickr User deadeyebart 

And while the news reports about this new fee detail the billions in losses the airline industry faces because of rising oil costs and several leading publications have looked at the effect this will have on the already pathetic customer service record of the industry, few have made any reasonable suggestions for how to fix the real problem.

What is the real problem?

You can’t be both a full-service airline AND a discount airline.

American wants to keep their full-service clients (business class, full-fare coach, AA Rewards members, etc.) AND nickel and dime their discount fliers.

So why offer a discount rate at all?  Because they want to compete with the discount airlines (Jet Blue, TED, Spirit, etc.) on price.

But buying a ticket from a discount airline means you’ve accepted the discount philosophy and you’re shopping on price.  You know that you’ll pay extra for a meal and to rent headsets.  You understand that there will be certain limitations on things like baggage and onboard amenities.

So why does American even offer discount tickets?  Why don’t they just forget the discount rates and focus on the customers who are willing to pay more for a better experience?

Because they’re afraid.  If they charge a reasonable fee for their services (meaning raising fares to cover their fuel bills) they might lose a lot of customers, even if continuing on their current path means losing a lot of cash - they lost $330 million in the first quarter of 2008 alone! - and alienating customers.

Seems to me that they’re already on a path toward jettisoning true discount shoppers by seeing how much the quasi-discount fliers will put up with.

A quasi-discount flier is someone who logs onto Travelocity or Orbitz and finds the cheapest flight listed that meets their time/date requirements without considering other costs.

Except a simple review of the types of people who buy airline tickets will show that, while true-discount fliers will never convert to full-pay or luxury customers, some quasi-discount fliers DO transition to a higher-paying customer.

Why, then, charge a fee that will alienate true-discount fliers AND annoy the quasi-discounters?

Because American Airlines is thinking short-term.  Because they need a quick fix to staunch the stock price bleed.

Everyone agrees that solving such a bold problem ($330 MILLION is a BOLD problem) requires a bold solution.

Here’s mine: 

Bow out of the discount ticket wars.  Make your planes the best in the business, with complimentary everything on every flight.  Find real perks to give first class, business class and frequent fliers (a pillow is not a perk).

Launch an ad campaign touting that flying is part of the “American Dream” and that they can fly the same way folks did in the golden age of air travel.

Run 30-minute infomercials that show off the new “American” way to travel. 

Push “green” initiatives by offering tips on how to pack light and how fewer pounds per passenger helps save thousands of gallons of fuel everyday. 

Banners and billboards would ask people to “Rediscover what it means to be an AMERICAN.”

(I’d love to make part of each plane the no-children zone, but I can imagine the backlash that would create.)

Funeral homes know that it’s just too hard to offer a full-service experience and a discount price at the same time.  True discounters don’t knock on your door if you advertise full-service, and most full-service buyers don’t want to go to a discount firm. 

It’s about time that the airline industry figured it out.  Before we taxpayers have to spend hundreds of billions of dollars saving their skins.

Related Posts:

 We’ve Identified Your Clients

Choosing Your Customers and Convincing Them to Choose You

The Yellow Monster Will Devour Your Ad Budget!

A friend emailed me this note after checking out my blog recently:

Love the blog;  who knew you’d written so much lately!  But why do you share so much personal (and sometimes embarrassing) stuff about your business and mistakes you’ve made?  If it were me, I would accentuate the positive.

So I told her, in a hour-plus phone call, that analyzing and dissecting my mistakes helps me grow.  Plus, it might help others who were headed the same way, either in a business or personal situation.

Then this morning I found a Flickr user who posts funny, ironic or awkward pictures on his photostream.  Now, before you visit mmk_kobayashi’s photos, you should know that there are quite a few pictures of partially naked people in foolish situations.  Might not be safe for work hours.

Most of the pictures made me laugh, but others made me think about some important lessons I think can and should be reiterated.

LESSON:  When you realize a mistake, it might be easier to find a quick fix, but more often, the best solution is to invest the time and energy to do it over again the right way.

LESSON:  Your best marketing efforts can have unintended meanings and consequences.  Spend a few extra minutes thinking through your design or advertising words.

LESSON:  Lots of old people don’t know they’re old.  The outside doesn’t always match the inside.

LESSON:  Don’t assume that everyone is familiar with your technology or your jargon.  Even if the tech was brand new to your generation.

LESSON:  Have backup tools available.  Nothing destroys credibility like being unprepared.  Plus, you’ll look like a complete moron.

In this day and age, I can’timagine a business not having at minimum a website, let alone an interactive site that engages clients or potential customers.

At Clock Life Story Funeral Home, we believe in technology so strongly that outside of our several bricks and mortar operations, we have created a separate business where the entire value proposition is 100% online.

Families & friends now come to our primary website www.lifestorynet.com to share a thought or a memory.  They also are invited to visit www.eCrematory.com or the www.Todaycenter.com, which are both websites where consumers can (and do!) drive down the cost of their funeral through actively completing some of the functions they are legally able to complete (a self directed funeral, if you will).

Our website engages thousands of consumers daily and millions throughout the year.

In my opinion, funeral service as a whole has barely scratched the surface embracing technology.  We’re doing a dis-service to families.

In closing, I’ll quote Todd Van Beck and with his infamous Mr. Heefy stories, “nothing has changed the face funeral service since the replacement of the gravity based embalming machine!”, when he was referencing the introduction of www.LifeFiles.com, just one of the pioneering funeral technology companies.  We can not ignore technology!

In a recent post, titled Do Funeral Homes REALLY Need the Internet?, we mentioned the funeral blog of director Brian Hanner of Geib Funeral Homes in Ohio.  Brian read the story and agreed to share his thoughts with us.

He wrote:

Imagine the surprise I got while surfing through the Final Embrace blog to find… my blog referenced. (Gulp)

I thought that a little context would be helpful for those of you debating the “blog or website” topic.

I believe that every business needs a website. It is the modern phone directory for Americans of all ages who have a computer squarely plopped in their kitchen, or bedroom.

For consumers, selecting a funeral director is about relationships. I think for those in funeral service who want to be positioned online and in their community as a provider of responsive, knowledgeable and a nurturing brand of funeral service, that a blog is a perfect compliment to an existing website.

We know that much of the traffic generated on a funeral home’s website is destined for online memorials and obituaries. My hope was that the blog would capture the interest of visitors to the site.

Knowing as well that the visitor to our site has most likely come from another funeral home website, or newspaper obituary listing, that we have to make an excellent impression, or we will be toast in the mind of the consumer.

For the record, we receive about 460 unique visits to our website daily. The top destinations from our tracking software:

1: online obituaries

2: contact us (yes - it is the link in the
top left of the page for EASY/QUICK location)

3: blog

4: Why Choose Geib

5: What to do when death occurs

6: Employment with Geib (note that we are not always seeking applicants, but this does give shoppers another place to peek behind the curtain, and gain an understanding of the culture that we endeavor to maintain.

7: Geib Pet Crematory

8: Geib In Touch (Our community outreach and aftercare calendar of events)

While I can’t point to many additional calls that the blog has secured, it’s early… and like most advertising, will never be cited by consumers as the reason for choosing their funeral care provider.

The blog gets its highest traffic on Monday’s - when all of the working folks return to the office and catch up on the web surfing they didn’t care to do on their own personal time.

Content is posted on about any day that ends in a 2 or a 7 - to ensure a fresh topic with regularity.

Don’t expect readers to get involved on such a public blog. The questions I receive are often personal, and not the type of thing that writers would want to sign their name to on the internet.

Do expect to promote your site - and the blog as part of the site.

Finally, Remember thy audience. These are future/potential customers. It is not the space for blowing off steam, or compromising the integrity of funeral service. I usually resist the temptation to post on personal topics, but made an exception when my daughter was born in October… we reside in a small enough community that news of that nature is welcome - and humanizing. If you visit the blog, click on the “It’s a Girl” thread to see me in scrubs, holding a precious little gal, and beaming… Watch out Rob Heppell

Good Luck Future Bloggers!

You can access all the pages that Brian refers to in his letter by visiting the Geib Funeral Homes website.