I feel like I'm losing out to convenience. Low-cost providers are able to undercut my offerings, and a lot of families choose options they see as either faster or cheaper. I've heard you talk about active preneed, but how will being more active make any real difference? – Inconvenienced
Dear Inconvenienced: You raise a great question that I've heard a lot of owners ask in recent years. When you see family after family choose direct disposition or say they don't want a service, it's an easy leap to think the preneed conversation will be the same. And sometimes it is.
But convenience itself isn't necessarily bad. It simply fulfills a need. We've all had the fast and cheap experience of grabbing lunch at a drive-through, but it's also convenient to book your entire family vacation using only an app or two on your phone. The purpose is what matters, and a convenient experience can lead to meaningful moments and memories that last a lifetime.
This is what's possible with preneed. When it's done right, families will not only choose the convenience of a prearranged funeral, but they'll also choose quality services that help their loved ones heal.
In the early stages of grief, it can be hard to know which way is up. So it's completely understandable that people will opt for whatever is easiest. They don't want to go through the hassle, or at least they want to reduce it as much as possible.
When someone I know recently lost a loved one, they were amazed at how much there was to do. Coordinating a whirlwind of paperwork, appointments, and responding to well-wishes is tough enough on a good day. Add in overwhelming waves of grief, and it is no surprise that they looked for any shortcut they could take.
For some, this means finding the cheapest option available, looking to avoid adding a financial burden to the ever-growing stress they're feeling. For others, they look for whatever is quickest or easiest, willing to shell out a few extra dollars to get that to-do off their list.
Just in the first few days following what might be the most devastating day of someone's life, they're expected to secure a death certificate, choose a funeral home, plan the memorial service, gather information for the obituary, pick out clothing for their loved one, choose a casket…the list feels never-ending, and that's just the start. Even at its most simple, an estate can take at least six months – and sometimes up to and beyond two years – to settle.
When you look at everything you need to deal with, wouldn't you want a little bit of convenience?
The truth is, anytime we make a choice based on convenience, there are trade-offs to be made. Some of these are less obvious than others. The speed of a fast food taco may involve a trade-off based on taste, and a cheap pair of headphones may have poor sound quality or fall apart quickly.
The trade-off is far less obvious with funerals. When you opt to take care of everything as quickly or cheaply as possible, you lose out on an essential experience. You're left to create an opportunity for ritual and gathering on your own, and many times this gets put off or not done at all.
As you well know, the consequences of this can last for months or even years. Not giving yourself the time or space to grieve can leave you stuck with unresolved feelings. In extreme cases, it can even prevent you from fully healing.
A quality preneed experience helps change this. So many of our funeral home partners say it's a night-and-day difference between serving a prearranged family and a family who does not have a plan in place. With a quality prearrangement, all the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed. And if the decedent also prefunded, the cost is taken care of as well.
In that respect, preneed is truly convenient. Instead of focusing on all the tasks and logistics, families can focus on what matters most.
For some people, coffee is just a daily necessity, a pick-me-up to get through the day. But others buy special equipment and coffee beans from across the globe, fine-tuning their process to make the best possible version of a latte, cappuccino or americano.
When you care about something, you're willing to put in a little extra work to make it the best it can be. It can be fun to increase the difficulty of a hobby or seek out complexity when it's something you enjoy.
One of my coworkers at Precoa has a motto: "Do what you need to do now so you can do what you want to do later." To have the time to perfect your cup of coffee or your smoked brisket, you probably rearranged other parts of your day to be able to focus. You set your bills to autopay, you mowed the lawn a day early, you did the dishes the night before.
Now, those are fairly simple examples. But they map fairly well onto the universal and much more essential experience of helping a family say goodbye to a loved one.
By talking with families early and taking care of the finances and the specifics of the service, you're allowing more time for families to fine-tune how they want to remember their loved one. With the "need-to-dos" out of the way, families can focus on what songs they'd like to play or what photos they'd like to display. Most importantly, you're helping families begin the grieving and healing process without adding further complications.
You're also allowing your funeral directors and other staff to do what they do best: care for the families you serve. Without needing to worry about more tedious to-dos like collecting payment, your team can use the blueprint of a quality prearrangement and focus on the small details that create an exceptional experience for everyone.
An outstanding preneed experience should be outstanding for everyone involved: families, Advance Funeral Planners, funeral directors, and funeral homes. That should be the goal of convenience, and creating an all-around great experience is what drives our vision at Precoa to prearrange all families.
We believe that being proactive is your best opportunity to shift the conversation about funeral service and help families see why we all need meaningful connection in the wake of a loss. When your funeral home is proactive, the outcome is that you forge even more connections in your community, including with families who are younger, have recently moved, or were previously unfamiliar with your brand, which leads to increased market share and more families choosing more services.
Have a preneed question? Please reach out and I'd be happy to answer it. tanderson@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.