Nearly one out of every five people report that the last funeral service they attended was “routine, it could have been anyone in the casket.”

As a funeral practitioner, chances are, you don’t want your services creating those kinds of experiences. Instead, you want to create meaningful services that truly reflect the life lived and help families heal.

With 71% of Baby Boomers (your emerging demographic) reporting they do not want a “traditional funeral,” generic funeral services aren’t exactly cutting it anymore. You’ve got to personalize your funeral services to make them more memorable and meaningful.

Creating a meaningful celebration of life is important – not only to your families, but to service attendees, your community, and most of all, your business.

Let’s take a look at 3 ways personalized funeral services can help your funeral home’s business:

1) Bring More Value to Your Funeral Services
Offering your families personalized services that go above and beyond is key to improving the perceived value of your services. Families today feel that a unique celebration of life is what makes their loved one’s funeral service meaningful. By offering your families a unique service such as a video tribute, you’re going above and beyond by helping them celebrate, honor and remember the life lived.

When tribute videos are played during a funeral service or visitation, it’s easier to start the conversation about the deceased to help the family and service guests share memories and heal.  In fact, it’s been shown that when video tributes are not a part of the funeral service, it’s harder for families to positively connect with memories that help them cope with the loss of their loved one.

2) Increase Your Level of Care
27% of consumers would pay 15% more for a service or product if they received a superior customer experience. This means if you show families you’re willing to go the extra mile to provide them with a personalized service, they’ll go the extra mile to make sure you (and not your competition) helps them memorialize their loved one’s life.

3) Create a Lasting Relationship with Families
Expanding the active length of the relationship with families beyond the immediate funeral ceremony timeframe is important for future business. Ever hear the saying “80% of your business should come from 20% of your customers”?

A good strategy to lengthen that relationship is by creating a memorable healing experience for them. Keepsakes that can be branded with your funeral home’s information such as the tribute videos, tribute books and custom print materials are a great way of doing this. Tribute videos and tribute books spark positive memories for families and help them focus on the celebration of their loved one’s life, rather than the pain of their loss. You’re helping them create a permanent legacy of their loved one that they can turn to when they’re working through their grief.

4) Grow Your Business with Word-of-Mouth Marketing
These days, families are influenced more by word-of-mouth recommendations than anything else. In fact, 54% of customers reference a word-of-mouth recommendation to drive their purchasing decisions.

If you offer personalized funeral services that your competitors don’t, people will talk about them, opening more opportunities for business.  Just imagine – if someone goes to one of your services and thinks “Wow, XX Funeral Home made a beautiful video tribute for that family,” they’re going to tell others about the legacy you created– and keep you in mind when they lose someone they love.

How Can You Offer Personalized Services?
So how can you start offering personalized services to your families? It’s easy with Life Tributes Personalization Software Suite. With Life Tributes, you can create tribute videos, tribute books, personalized printing keepsakes in house, in minutes! Click here to download your 30-Day Free Trial!

How have you helped your families create a memorable service for their loved one? Do you agree that this is important for our profession? Share your thoughts!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Krystal Penrose is a content marketer and funeralOne blog manager. As content marketer, her role is to research the changing needs of today’s families, and present them to funeral professionals through educational content. Krystal also engages with thought leaders in the profession to help create an online community for funeral professionals across the country. funeralOne’s solutions include: website design, aftercare, eCommerce, and personalization software. For more information about funeralOne, visit www.funeralOne.com.

Krystal Penrose

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