CREMATION OPTIONS

In this third installment in the series, we will look at further steps that funeral home professionals can become more responsive when clients ask about cremation services as part of their funeral plan. As provided by Frances at Cremation Options.

BE KNOWLEDGEABLE ABOUT THE CREMATION PROCESS

It is surprising how many arrangers have not seen the inside of a crematory facility and have never witnessed a cremation or understand what cremation services provide.  I believe in the adage, “Seeing is believing.”  While some arrangers may not want to view the actual reduction of the body in the chamber, all arrangers meeting with cremation consumers must be familiar with what takes place during cremation.  You need to know some basic facts, such as how long it takes, the weight of cremated remains, what is processing, what happens with any metal form the container or that may be in the body, how cremated remains containers are labeled, etc.  Just as you know what goes on at a cemetery when a burial is made, you must also know what goes on during the cremation process.

INVEST IN YOURSELF AND FUNERAL HOME AND/OR CREMATORY STAFF

For owners, human resources are your greatest asset.  Ask yourself this: are employees working with you or for you?  Funeral service is among the last refuges of nepotism and in some firms, if the employee is not a family member, it can mean they are merely workers paid to perform duties.  Some are not given the opportunity to chat with cremation services suppliers and vendors.  In essence, they are not allowed to represent the firm in the community.  Often they are excluded from partaking in business planning discussions with management. 

Unless continuing education is a requirement for licensure, these employees can be denied the opportunity to attend seminars, workshops, special educational programs or association events.  The entire staff should be given an opportunity for self advancement and learning, especially arrangers who are front line representatives of the firm.  If employees are being denied these opportunities, they must read and study on their own by taking evening classes and reading books about business, interpersonal skill development and understanding the consumer.  The best funeral directors and arrangers never stop learning.  Practically every attorney, physician, CPA and financial planner has a profession library in house.  We need to copy what they do.

ASK HIGH QUALITY QUESTIONS

Make it a habit to study the habits of successful professionals and business people.  All of them have mastered the art of asking clients high quality questions.  They know that the right question posed the right way yields high quality information.  The answers help professionals uncover ways they can be of service.  For us the right questions help take the guesswork out of the planning process and aid families in uncovering needs that go beyond disposing or cremating the body.  Asking the right questions help prevent the “order taker” mentality and from making false assumptions about the client. 

For most of us, asking questions is a learned skill, requiring preparation and practice.  When I learned to ask cremation families the right questions, opportunities that I had assumed were not there opened to me.  Some examples of rewarding questions: tell me about the family-when you think of your mother what thoughts come to your mind?—tell me more about when you said you only want cremation-describe for me the single most memorable thing you recall about other life celebrations you have attended.  The arrangement conference is much more than a reflexive exercise to complete documents, authorizations and hand out a General Price List.  The arrangement conference can be a satisfying experience for the client family and aid them in uncovering needs while being rewarding for the company.  As I see it if a client family wants to create new traditions and seeks something other than a traditional funeral, a professional funeral planner is the best person to help them.

Want to learn more? Contact the cremation services experts at Cremation Options at 1-877-989-9090.

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In this second installment, we will look at further steps that funeral home professionals can become more responsive when clients ask about cremation services as part of their funeral plan. As provided by Frances at Cremation Options.

OFFER CHOICES AND LET THE CLIENT FAMILY BE THE ONE TO SAY “NO” TO THEM

It is no secret that today’s consumers are demanding, and they demand choice in all of their purchases, including funeral, cremation, cemetery goods and services.  A minimal selection of merchandise and optional services and ceremonies means you are short changing yourself.  In my opinion it is a disservice to the client family.  What I learned many years ago on my practice has become one of my axioms: What you do for the burial family you must also do for the cremation family. 

Burial families are presented with an almost unlimited selection of caskets.  Yet at some funeral homes, cremation families are presented with an almost unlimited selection of caskets.  Yet at some funeral homes, cremation families are given a meager selection of two or three containers.  Urn selection can be downright embarrassing, with as few as three urns hidden inside a closet. Offering a wide selection of merchandise is an investment, not must an expense.  While almost every burial family is provided with information to make an informed decision, many cremation families receive no explanation and are left to fend for themselves. 

Without crucial information this usually results in the least expensive item or service selected.  Do some arrangers or funeral directors see their time as being too important to spend with a cremation consumer?  Do some owners berate arrangers who spend time with a family choosing cremation?  Rarely if ever will an arranger make a casket decision for a burial family but for many consumers who choose cremation, their loved ones are placed in a cardboard box, often without their knowledge.  When cremation families are presented with a choice of cremation containers (that are fairly priced, in logical order and well displayed in a room or presented in a book) and they are allowed to make their own decisions, it is surprising how often something other than a cardboard box is selected.  Smart, respectful arrangers have learned to not make decisions for the client and to allow the client to say “no” to everything (except the minimum requirement).  This increases revenues and enhances customer satisfaction.

FOCUS ON SURVIVORS

As a young arranger, focusing on the survivors was hard for me to understand.  Asking how they wanted the hair done, what shade of lipstick they wanted, what clothing to use and if they wanted a minister was not focusing on the needs of the survivors.”  For the most part, our training has focused on rendering care to the dead body and making as good a presentation as possible.  With traditional families, those who desire visitation or are concerned with the looks of the decedent, it is easy to talk about these matters. 

Except for minimum verification of identity viewing, many  families who choose cremation services do not equate viewing the body with cremation.  Your skills as an embalmer or restorative arts technician can be superfluous to them.  On the other hand, employing more of the “human touch” in your arrangements as a way to show the family that you are there to help them, not sell them. 

It is alright to assert your wisdom while educating people about the importance of saying goodbye and the need to recognize the death.  Asking who is who in the family, who are key friends and who should be included in planning are important questions.  Ask them to tell you about previous experiences they have had in attending funerals or farewells.  What is one thing they recall from other celebrations that they would like implemented at this time?  Remember many of your client families have watched TV programs such as “Six Feet Under” and “Family Plots.”  They have watched the funeral of Pope John Paul II, Gandhi’s body being carried to the funeral pyre, President Reagan’s funeral and more.  You might be surprised by what you hear.  You may learn how to be of further service, above and beyond just disposing or cremation the body.

SHARE AN AGENDA WITH THE CLIENT FAMILY AT THE BEGINNING OF THE ARRANGEMENT CONFERENCE

This is a critical step often overlooked or ignored.  Even if the family is adamant about wanting “only simple cremation services” or is experienced in funeral planning, one fact remains: everyone feels better when they know what will take place.  All professionals, especially those in personal service businesses, share an agenda with the client.  It is a mark of the professional.  Sharing an agenda helps the arranger maintain control, it demonstrates organization.  Without acting over-bearing an agenda lets the client family know what is expected of them as well. 

The best agenda is short and succinct, not a rambling dissertation.  For example, the arranger might say, “In the next hour and a half, we will take care of the legal documents and information for the death certificate along with completing authorization and consent forms.  I will review with you the services of our funeral home and ask you to make four decisions: what ceremonies you want and how you would like to say goodbye, what container you want for the deceased, a container for the cremated body and the final disposition of the cremated body.”

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The telephone was promptly answered on the second ring. 

“Cremation Options, this is Frances speaking.” 

“Yes Frances….I’ve had a death in the family and I need some information about cremation. Can someone help me?” 

“Oh I see…let me try to find someone who is available.” 

Frances paged the owner in his office and told him, “You’ll never believe it, there’s another cremation shopper on the phone.  Do you want to take it or just call them back after your Lions club meeting?” 

Telephone calls of this nature are received at funeral homes and cremation services everywhere.  Some are handled well, but often when the “C” word is mentioned the response can be poorly handled with indifference to the feelings and needs of the caller. This article will not address telephone answering skills, per se, but instead will identify some key steps every funeral-cremation arranger can use in the arrangement conference with cremation consumers. 

The most successful funeral and cremation services arrangers practice these steps with every family.  They save learned that a satisfying arrangement conference coupled with revenue generation has little to do with merely offering more merchandise but has more to do with updating one’s people-communication skills and encouraging their active participation with the client family.  Becoming skillful in the following steps and implementing one or more of them in the arrangement conference (and on the telephone) will make a big difference.

1.       LISTEN

Hearing words alone is not always indicative that you are listening.  There are many aspects to listening.  Among others it means listening to feelings, observing body language, understanding the person’s demeanor and not prejudging them while they are speaking.  Active listening means focusing intently on the client’s family and with simple gestures or words, becoming a part of their discussion.  Listening means not writing while they are speaking.  Make the conference as free from distractions as possible-don’t sort papers or perform other tasks while the person is walking.  Listening also means that you are not dominating the arrangement by doing the talking.

2.       UNDERSTAND IT IS OK TO BREAK FROM TRADITION

As requests for cremation services continue to increase, be aware that for many client families, this may be the first time cremation is being done in this family.  It can be a new experience for them.  When an uncle died three years ago, it was his wish to be cremated-the first family member to choose cremation.  It created uneasiness among his surviving brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, grandchildren and some close friends.  At a family only gathering at my uncle’s home, I was asked to dispel many misconceptions and uncertainties about cremation. 

During a sometimes heated discussion, I answered questions about cremation and gave them brochures to read.  Some parents asked for suggestions as to how they should explain cremation to young children.  Some wanted to know how the “ashes” would be dealt with.  For members of a Roman Catholic family whose tradition was earth burial or entombment of the body, the first cremation was unthinkable.  During my career, I have attempted to uncover the reasons why a family might “break tradition” and choose cremation.  I looked for ways to be supportive of their choices while striving to be constructive in working with them (not demeaning them or being destructive to the planning process).  I discovered early on that attempts to “change the minds” of cremation consumers or using demeaning words or treating cremation like the plague was destructive behavior in the arrangement conference and to some viewed as unprofessional conduct. 

More often than not trying to change someone’s mind alienates the arranger from the client and sets the stage for needless confrontation.  Being unsupportive complicates communication and makes any attempt to establish trust and collaboration most difficult.  Cremation can also be a new experience for some staff members.  Just as families can be filled with misconceptions about cremation and its role in contemporary funeral practices, employees can also be misinformed and prone to misjudge what the client family is saying.  For arrangers and directors of funerals and ceremonies, non -traditional requests for services or services that require a change in protocol should not be viewed as burdensome.  Our business is extremely personal.  Most of us entered funeral service so we could help people and serve them in their time of need.  Meeting the changing needs of the “new consumer” requires us to recognize that flexible” is one of the characteristics of a funeral.  The funeral director-arranger must also remain flexible in providing services and in being helpful to clients who may seek to create new traditions.

3.       IT IS PERMISSIBLE TO NOT USE THE “F” WORD

Some people choosing cremation do so because they simply do not want a funeral.  For these people, burial or entombment can be synonymous with saving a (traditional) funeral while cremation can be synonymous with individualization, personal expression, customization, spontaneity, less restriction and so forth.  Using the word “funeral” with some cremation consumers can mean in instant “no thank you.”  The most successful funeral directors across the country dealing with cremation services refrain from using the word funeral.  Instead, they use words such as ceremony, celebration, life celebration, farewell, gathering, send off, recognition and others. 

In one funeral home where cremation is performed 70 percent of the time, arrangers use words like honoring and hash when discussing ceremonies.  Our license may denote us as being funeral directors and our facilities may be licensed and zoned for conducting funeral services, but in actuality, we so much more than any license or zoning description says. 

I recommend including the word “cremation” on business cards, signage and in all advertising copy.  Using the word “cremation” will not cause burial clients to shun your establishment and choose another funeral home.  It will not influence burial customers to suddenly choose cremation.  In my experience at my funeral some in Southern California, using the word cremation meant that in addition to serving (traditional) burial families, other families who preferred cremation and otherwise would not have selected my firm, called me.  If yours is truly a full-service funeral home, advertise that fact and also be willing to refer customers to cremation services if and when they ask.

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