You provide exceptional service and support to each family you serve, but do you have what it takes to build the same meaningful connections with everyone in your community, and do you have the time to do so?
Funeral providers that have an active preneed program aim to generate quality leads by casting a wide net in their community. However, this process takes time, and you often need to nurture these individuals over a longer period until they feel ready to prearrange their own funeral. In fact, 29% of respondents to our latest policy owner survey reported that it took two years or more from the time they first learned about prearranging until they finalized and made their own arrangements.
Keep reading to discover three common opportunities funeral providers miss when trying to capture more preneed sales.
1. Aftercare
Your communication with a family doesn’t have to end immediately following the funeral. An aftercare program is a great way to continue supporting families during their time of grief and keep your funeral home top of mind. Unlike other preneed lead generation efforts, you have no competition with aftercare – you already have established a relationship and level of trust with the family, which allows you to position your funeral home as a valuable resource.
Text-Based Aftercare
Text-Based Aftercare from Homesteaders Solutions is an excellent example of the effectiveness of aftercare programs in increasing preneed sales opportunities. Our text-based aftercare program – staffed with live text message responders – creates a thoughtful dialogue with families in the first 12 months after their loss.
Skilled service specialists interact with families on your behalf, so the benefits they receive reflect positively on you and your business. Families who engage with the program often provide positive online reviews after interacting with an aftercare specialist. In fact, the average partner funeral home earns 16 five-star reviews within the first week and 97% of partner funeral homes are ranked #1 in their market on Google. Aftercare programs like this allow you to continue the conversation with families after the funeral and increase your online visibility for more preneed and at-need opportunities.
2. Preneed Appointment Setting
Your funeral home may book 100 leads per month and call through them once, but never again. Maybe this is because your staff is serving at-need families, or they wear multiple hats that prevent them from focusing solely on preneed lead generation. Regardless, not taking the time to nurture and maximize those opportunities can lead to an unsteady trajectory for your preneed business.
Preneed appointment setting helps to stabilize this trajectory so your preneed counselors can count on a consistent number of reschedules, follow-ups and new opportunities every month.
Appointment Setting with EnGauge CRM
Our appointment setting program helps funeral providers serve more preneed families than ever before. Our service specialists are trained to make every single family that they call feel like they’re speaking with someone sitting at the front desk of your funeral home.
Funeral providers that proactively embrace their lead generation efforts with an appointment setting solution fill their pipelines at a faster and steadier rate. On average, we set 22 preneed appointments for each partner funeral home every month. Preneed appointment setting gives time back to your staff so they can focus on helping preneed and at-need families at the right time. Plus, it’s fully integrated with our all-new EnGauge CRM, giving you greater line of sight over all aspects of your preneed business.
3. Online Funeral Planning
eFuneral is a third example of how technology can connect funeral homes with more preneed families than ever before.
eFuneral
eFuneral is an online lead and sales generation platform that connects funeral providers with customers who are looking to plan and purchase preneed or at-need arrangements online. With today’s consumers spending more time online than ever, eFuneral gives you the opportunity to connect with younger demographics and meet people where they want to shop.
Since its launch in 2019, eFuneral adopters have reported more website traffic, increased brand awareness and higher sales revenue. And while these new families may not have a connection with your funeral home prior to beginning the online arrangement process, you have opportunities to nurture these relationships over time through follow-up calls, invitations to visit your facility and preneed aftercare programs.
By investing in new technology offerings for your business or developing support programs for families, you can begin turning missed opportunities into potential opportunities to serve more preneed and at-need families.
