Ric Brown Family Funeral Home, based in Texas, is a family-owned funeral home business that has grown to serve over 800 families per year, and the number continues to increase. What is the secret sauce to their success? According to Tim Brown, owner and 2nd-generation funeral director, one big ingredient in their secret sauce is Gather. Learn about their story and how Gather is helping their team reach new heights.

Case Study Overview

• Customer Name: Ric Brown Family Funeral Homes
• Location: Mission, TX; McAllen, TX; Alamo, TX
• Using Gather Since: 2022
• Uses Gather For: Case Management, Integrated Website Design

The Story of Ric Brown Family Funeral Homes

Tim Brown, a 2nd-generation funeral director, owns and operates 3 locations for Ric Brown Family Funeral Homes in South Texas with his mother, Kathy. He followed in the footsteps of his late father, and the funeral homes have grown from serving 80 families per year to 800 families per year.

Every family that their team serves becomes part of the Ric Brown family. Tim, an incredible advocate in the death care industry, currently serves on the Texas Funeral Service Commission. The team at Ric Brown Family Funeral Home works hard to build upon their reputation of quality, sincerity, and trust with every family they serve.

The Challenges Before Gather

Previously, Ric Brown Family Funeral Homes used pen and paper to manage every case they worked on. While this system worked when their business was smaller, they needed a modern operating system to use as their annual case volume grew. In addition to needing a management system that could scale with their business, the team needed help with a few other areas.

• Generic Website Experience: To adapt to the new digital age, Tim’s team needed a unique, modern website design – not only that, but they needed an obituary experience that truly helped families remember their loved ones in a beautiful way.

• Wasted Time and Resources: Whether it was collecting payments, writing obituaries, or collecting vitals, the team at Ric Brown Family Funeral Home spent too much time, money, and resources on completing the many required tasks for each case.

• Lack of Visibility and Data: While operations were manageable, it was not easy to decipher overall business performance and know exactly what was happening with every case at a quick glance.

• Average Collection Rates: As the business continued to grow, so did the number of outstanding collections. At the end of the day, the team needed a better way to track and collect payments on any outstanding contracts or insurance policies.

How Gather Helped The Business

Since switching to Gather, Tim noticed an immediate boost in many areas of the business.

Increasing The Bottom Line

“Gather has been revolutionary for us. As far as the amount of time and staff it would take before to do what we do today? It’s unbelievable. Since we started with Gather, we have better collection rates, which means there is more money in the bank to do more things.”

Creating a Beautiful, New Website

“I have people tell me on a daily basis that we have the best funeral home website they’ve ever seen. I encourage other funeral directors to go look up other funeral homes’ websites. There are about three major companies that make websites, and you can almost spot — without looking at the bottom to see who made it — exactly where they came from, and that is NOT the case with Gather.”

Obtaining Case Info at a Quick Glance

“People call me on Sunday afternoon and will say in the obituary that they forgot their Uncle George. Well, I don’t have to run into the office, I’m not going home. I pull up my phone, hit it 30 seconds later, while they’re on the phone, and I say okay, it’s done. That simple.”

Increasing Community Engagement With Remember Pages

“The number one feature that I love is the fact that anyone can add pictures on the website. It’s amazing to me that we managed funerals over a year ago, and people are still adding pictures [today]. That means they’re coming back and still adding these pictures a year after the funeral. I just think that’s great because funerals are all about personalization.”

Solving The Flower Shop Dilemma

“Flower shops are the nemesis of funeral homes. On our website, as flowers come in, we take a picture of them [and upload them to their section on the loved one’s Remember Page]. Boom! I hit [and upload a picture of] the card on the backside. Flower shops have stopped calling me. They send my [Remember Page] link to their customer and show that the flower order was received. It makes a big difference.”

Having Access to Reliable Customer Support

“In my world, I don’t have the time to be sitting here and trying to figure something out. I don’t even call Gather anymore when I have a problem. I go to the chat, I type in my problem, and within 30 seconds they’ve responded and fixed my problem.”

Gather is What Your Business Needs

Gather has not only proven to be a game-changer for the business, but the platform has also proven to be life-changing for both the families and the staff that work with Ric Brown Family Funeral Home. 

Book a demo of Gather today and learn what your business and families are missing out on. Gather’s intuitive platform can help your funeral home or crematory when it comes to case management, website design, body tracking, and even funeral live streaming.