There is a lot of jargon in the tech industry that can confuse and muddle your understanding of important technology in your own funeral business.

But trust us when we say, the term “User Experience” is not one of those terms. 

Below, we’ll explain user experience in the best way we can, from a to z.

So stick around because understanding user experience could be the answer to many of the problems your funeral business might be facing.

What is User Experience?

User experience, according to VisualRetailing.com, “refers to the emotions and attitudes of a person as they interact with every aspect of a company’s products and services”.

You might have seen the term user experience (often abbreviated as UX) in many eCommerce blogs. It’s often talked about in the realm of design, specifically web design. It’s for this reason that many in our industry can be tempted to overlook this term, but user experience isn’t limited to design. And, to us, the most important aspect of your business.

Why should you care about User Experience?

Want to know just how important UX is? Let’s imagine for a moment a world that didn’t consider user experience…

You walk into a store that’s had the same tired products on display for years.

You click on a website and it loads incredibly slow, and never gets fixed.

You can’t find the information you’re looking for on a company’s website.

When you call a company, they don’t pick up the phone, or answer with a rude tone.

The logo of a business is the same for 100 years, and looks horrifically outdated.

Without the consideration of the experience of your customers, families, website visitors… what kind of business would you have, really? Now that we’re on the same page about why UX is so important, let’s talk about how it applies to your business.

How User Experience looks in your funeral business

User experience includes all aspects of your business, and is not limited to:

• Your products and their usability
• Your services and how well they work
• Your website
• Your team
• Your communications with client families
• Your marketing and marketing materials
• Your actual funeral home space (imagine all senses)
• The arrangement process families go through when they work with you

Heck, there isn’t any aspect of your business that isn’t UX. So how can you start to create an epic user experience for your client families to ensure the success and future of your funeral business? 

Let’s dive into the principles of a great user experience (according to Usability.gov) below.

The principles of an epic user experience

1. Usefulness

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”

~ Steve Jobs

Sure, you can come up with a great product or service idea. Or even a well designed funeral home website. But how useful is it to your customers or client families? If it’s not useful, they won’t use it. It’s as simple as that.

2. Usability

“Usability answers the question, ‘Can the user accomplish their goal?’”

~ Joyce Lee, Human Factors Design at Apple

Are your products and services easy to use? Can your client families find what they’re looking for easily, ideally within less than 30 seconds? Does your funeral home website load properly? Is all the information on your marketing materials up-to-date and correct? These are questions to consider when looking at the usability of your funeral business. Many of the great UX designers will tell you to look at your business from a consumer’s perspective, and let that determine every step thereafter. We like that approach and highly recommend trying it.

3. Desirability

“When the product is right, you don’t have to be a great Marketer.”

– Seth Godin

A wonderful casket showroom is great… but if your entire community is interested in green burials, you’ll have an issue on your hands. I can count on all my fingers and toes times when funeral home owners and funeralpreneurs created a business or product based off of what they think is great, and not what their customers are asking for. Don’t make that same mistake. Ask your client families what they want. And become a really good listener in the realm of your funeral business. It’s there where you will find the gold.

4. Findability

“Don’t find customers for your products, find products for your customers.”

– David Ogilvy

You can have the greatest product or service or even business in the world. And yet, without marketing, you don’t have much to show for. For us, marketing isn’t advertising as we know it to be on the television. Marketing is relationships. Marketing is solving problems for your client families. Marketing is weaving together resources in a community. Marketing is organic. Marketing is educating, informing and supporting. Invest your resources in organic marketing and you’ll never have a hard time attracting families to your business.

5. Accessibility

“Any product that needs a manual to work is broken.”

– Elon Musk

Of course you don’t need a manual for someone to book a funeral service with you or purchase an urn. However, how easy do you make it for someone to understand the language of your funeral business? How much education do you offer your client families? Do you speak in their language? Also, does your pricing offer options for all folks in your community who you’re passionate about serving? If not, these are some aspects of your funeral business to reconsider.

6. Credibility

“Leadership is learned, earned, and discerned. You develop it. It’s based on trust and credibility. Others see it in you. You can’t demand it.”

– Rick Warren

Everyone knows the funeral industry has a bit of a reputation. Just google “funeral home” and you’ll find hundreds of articles of innocent folks getting scammed by our colleagues. It’s sad but it’s a reality. Trust is something to be earned over time. And it’s earned by serving your customers and client families well. And with care. When this happens, your client families will naturally rave about it, telling everyone they know. Word of mouth is the currency of credibility, as are testimonials. The more you have, the more successful your funeral business will be. 

We’re curious how this content landed for you. Do you feel inspired to adjust certain aspects of your funeral business? What funeral businesses do you know who offer incredible user experiences? Let us know in the comments below!

PS. Why choose anything less than the funeral industry’s leading user experience website platform? Click here to speak with one of our Funeral Success Specialists or give us a call at 1-800-798-2575 to make the switch today.

Rochelle Rietow

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