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The funeral service profession is evolving faster than ever before. Through our many conversations with funeral directors, we hear one consistent theme – it’s scary to make the leap to new funeral home management software.
Why? Well, there are many different factors that go into it.
Price, previous commitments, support, burnout, features, old habits. The list goes on.
Several funeral directors noted one challenge that makes them hesitate with the transition to new software: it can be challenging to manage the change and get their teams to adopt the new program. Old habits die hard.
However, even with traditional management processes, one bottleneck always seems to throw a wrench in a funeral director’s workflow – family collaboration.
Every family is different. And with every other family, new challenges present themselves. Learn how a funeral app can help alleviate this area of your workflow for both you and the families you serve.
1) Keep Families on Track By Providing Digital Task Lists
When a family is working with you and your team, the growing list of family tasks can become overwhelming to them. On top of all of the tasks that they must now complete before the funeral service, they’re also dealing with the grief of losing their loved one.
Plus, every family is different. In some cases, you may experience small families where no one wants to take the lead to work with you to organize the services. In other cases, you may experience large families where everyone is fighting over every decision during the process.
You need a single source of truth that families can rely on to guide them through the funeral arrangement and bereavement process from start to finish.
There are several funeral app options that allow you to build checklists to provide to the families you serve. Checklists and task lists will help families focus on one task at a time, helping them complete arrangement tasks in a more timely manner.
2) Allow Families to Organize Everything in One Place
There are several tasks a family must collaborate with you on after losing their loved one, many of which require some form of a file or documentation:
- Notifying family and friends of their loved one’s passing and the dates of the services
- Writing, editing, and emailing their loved one’s obituary
- Helping compile the information for their loved one’s death certificate
- Sending photos of their loved one to you for the funeral services
- Finding life insurance money
- And many more tasks to complete before the funeral service
Instead of getting lost in email threads or forcing families to search through hundreds of files on their desktop computers to resend a file, a proper funeral app enables families to collaborate in one central location.
3) Help Families Make Decisions in Real-Time
In one study, it was found that fewer than 50% of respondents reported that decisions they make are in a timely manner, and over 60% of those respondents claim that at least half of the time making those decisions is ineffective.
Now, consider families who are stressed with making decisions about their loved one’s funeral services.
Those numbers may be even more extreme, which is something that you likely see on a daily basis.
A Funeral App Can Help You Show Families Their Options, Not Just Tell Them
With a funeral app that allows you to show families a digital GPL, you can create an easier, less stressful decision-making process for the families you work with.
Instead of telling the family their options for their loved one’s services, find a way to show them.
You can use a funeral app to show service options, casket options, vault options, urn options, cemetery options and more.
As a result, you’re able to help families make decisions in a timely fashion during arrangement conferences, helping reduce their stress and complete another critical step in the arrangement process.
4) Families Can Complete and Send Electronic Signatures Instantly
As we all know, the days of pen and paper are quickly becoming a thing of the past. More and more people enjoy the convenience of signing, initializing, and sending documents electronically.
For funeral homes, the standard is now the same.
As we all know, the days of pen and paper are quickly becoming a thing of the past. More and more people enjoy the convenience of signing, initializing, and sending documents electronically.
For funeral homes, the standard is now the same.
5) Guide Families Through the Aftercare Process
The aftercare process can be one of the most extensive and complex processes for families who are working with your funeral home to plan services.
Oftentimes, they aren’t even aware of all of the tasks that they’ll want to complete, so it’s your job to guide them through the world of aftercare.
The best funeral home apps create a checklist that helps educate every family about the various aftercare tasks that they need to complete:
- Freezing their loved one’s credit
- Closing their loved one’s social media
- Contacting their loved one’s social security
- Closing their loved one’s social media accounts
- Forwarding their loved one’s mail
- And even more
In the long run, this will help make family collaboration an easier, more streamlined process for everyone involved – better communication, fewer questions, and less confusion.
6) Families Can Work in The Funeral App From Any Device
While a family is dealing with their loved one’s death, they are oftentimes juggling many other events in life at the same time.
Because of this, it can be difficult for them to find the time to meet at your funeral home or sit down in front of a computer to finish planning funeral services or complete funeral arrangements.
Fortunately, the best funeral home apps allow families to view their tasks and collaborate with you from the comfort of any device – their phones or tablets.
7) Give Families a Central Place to Submit Memorial Photos
Email threads are no fun – we all know this. Instead, what if families could upload photos of their loved ones directly from their phones into a centrally managed, online repository?
With some modern funeral apps, you can.
This helps family members coordinate and quickly see if there are any photos that they still need to add, or if there are any photos that they’d like to remove.
As a result, you’re able to quickly obtain required photos for memorial services, tribute videos/slideshows, and the obituary. With the added benefit that families are satisfied with how easy the process was!
Simplify Family Collaboration With Gather
Managing a funeral home can be difficult and complex.
Managing every case and family that you’re working with can be even more unpredictable. For that reason, you’ll want to find a way to make family collaboration as simple as possible for your funeral home.
If you fail at collaborating with families, you run the risk of bad word of mouth and poor reviews.
But if you do the research and find a funeral app to enhance family collaboration, you’re setting your funeral home up to win in the long run.
Schedule a free demo with Gather today and see how you can make funeral management easier for everyone involved.
