Preneed Pro Tips
Getting CRM Buy-in
Preneed Pro Tips is an ongoing column where Tyler Anderson, Senior Vice President of Business Development at Precoa, answers questions about preneed from funeral professionals.
BY Tyler Anderson
"I recently invested a lot in a new CRM, but I still can't get my preneed agents to use it. You've built up the value of data in previous columns. How do you successfully encourage adoption so I can actually get data into the system?" - Users Needed
Dear Users Needed: Unfortunately, that's the million-dollar question. You raise an issue that lots of people struggle with, and not just in the funeral profession. When you think about investing in any new system, a lot of the discussion revolves around either the benefits to your business, or the logistics of implementation, training, and getting everyone up to speed.
Far less attention goes into giving people good reasons to keep using the new system. This is why one study in Harvard Business Review found that over one-third of all CRM projects fail.1 So how do you avoid becoming another statistic? The answer lies in making the CRM incredibly helpful and valuable for everyone involved.
As you mentioned in your question, we're big advocates of data and analytics here at Precoa. Data is what drives innovation and growth, and it allows you to provide even better experiences to consumers because you better understand their preferences and needs.
Yet for as useful as it may be to organize your data through CRM, adoption is about much more than that. CIO Review reported that low user adoption is often the result of not involving end-users early enough in the process, which can lead to a lack of ownership and even potential resentment.2
And while it's true that few people like being told what to do, the bigger problem with not inviting teams to participate in the early stages is that the focus is on using CRM rather than making it useful.
The difference here is a matter of purpose. CRM is a great way to gain better visibility into your business and your processes. It can also be a valuable learning tool once you start unraveling the nuances of consumer trends, behaviors, and preferences.
But does greater visibility automatically lead to greater improvements?
Think about your computer. You could unscrew the casing right now and look at all the wires and circuits, but that's probably not the best path to faster processing power. For that, you need more know-how. In other words, increased visibility isn't all that helpful unless you combine it with expertise and intentional action.
Put yourself in the shoes of your Advance Funeral Planner. You just finished meeting with a family, but didn't close a sale. The family showed interest in preplanning but decided that now was not the right time. Would you be excited to report back on the appointment?
If you said no, you're not alone. It's easy to report on a success. But it can be scary to report on a perceived failure. Will it reflect poorly on your performance? What will your manager think? What's the point of sharing something that didn't go well?
This is where data can make a positive impact on the culture of your sales team. Learning how to improve is hard when you're afraid of being seen as a failure. But data allows you to reshape the conversation.
If you knew you could have a second chance at a missed opportunity, wouldn't you take it? That's effectively what we do for Advance Funeral Planners through our Funeral Planning Center. AFPs know that if they don't prefund, that data will be routed back into our follow-up system. The family will continue being followed up with and nurtured in the background until they're ready to set another appointment.
Meanwhile, the AFP can focus on meeting with more families and further honing their skills. Not prefunding is no longer seen as a failure. It's seen as an opportunity for growth, learning, and improvement.
And for all the appointments that do prefund? Well, knowing how helpful it is to use the system to log the ones that don't, AFPS will be even more inclined to use it for the ones that do. CRM gets integrated into their day-to-day.
When your team knows that sharing appointment results will lead to changes that make their lives easier, getting buy-in no longer feels like an uphill battle.
A lot of people over-index their CRM efforts on input. They prioritize gathering and tracking information, and they push for adoption and reporting. Less time is spent on remembering why we do this.
At the end of the day, what are we really doing here? Our purpose at Precoa is enriching life through meaningful connection. That drives everything we do, including how we work with data.
For us, purpose and data go hand in hand. That means enriching life for AFPs who get to do more of what they love and who use CRM because it feeds into a network of total support.
It means enriching life for funeral homes who get direct insight into their programs' performance and how many more families they'll have the opportunity to serve.
And it means enriching life for families who will put an intentional plan in place for one of the most difficult days of their lives.
We have a large analytics team who are devoted to deciphering thousands of data points - but the data itself isn't the goal. The goal is for funeral homes to understand their preneed programs, AFPs to better understand opportunities to educate families, and for everyone to have deeper and more meaningful connections.
As I mentioned earlier, I've heard from a lot of funeral homes in your situation: They've built out a new system to manage their relationships with customers, but they struggle with adoption and haven't seen any improvement in sales or other metrics.
Some funeral homes look to solve this by reworking their management style or by asking for less data, compromising the utility of the system in the process. And sometimes, they throw up their hands and get rid of the CRM system they put so much time and money into implementing.
But too often, a lack of progress is a result of one thing: Your preneed team isn't clear about next steps. If they don't know what comes next, they don't have a "why" for filling out their reports. They've got a lot on their plates, and if they don't know that action will come from the information they share, there's no utility or value in working with the CRM.
This is one of the reasons we have always focused on managing the entire preneed pipeline for our partners. The journey to preplanning looks different for every family, and some people need a lot of touchpoints before they're ready to fully commit. Having a next step in place for every lead is critical to make sure no one falls through the cracks.
For instance, if a family sets an appointment but cancels, what happens next? Or what if a lead has gone "cold" and you haven't been able to reach them for several months? Again, with data and measurement on your side, you can keep track of these leads and follow up again in the future.
In one recent campaign, we took leads who hadn't been active for six months or more and sent them a personal invitation to an upcoming community event in their zip codes. Over the course of a month, we did this for over 100 events and more than 35,000 leads, and the result was a huge number of families who chose to re-engage and move forward by prearranging with our funeral home partners.
It goes without saying that CRM adoption is a challenge. But when you get everyone on the same page and your preneed team finds it helpful, it's one of the best ways to be more effective and build a sustainable program that blossoms in your market.
Have a preneed question? Please reach out and I'd be happy to answer it. preneedprotips@precoa.com
Tyler Anderson is senior vice president of business development at Precoa, a preneed company that helps hundreds of funeral homes prearrange more families and grow their markets. Born and raised in the funeral profession, Tyler appreciated the importance of ceremony, ritual, and gathering from an early age. He is passionate about sharing a new vision for preneed that helps more families across the country experience a meaningful funeral service.