Our Top Three Tips for Funeral Directors to Prepare for 2021
December 9, 2020
2020 certainly didn’t end up being what anyone expected. However, we all learned a lot and can take that knowledge with us into the new year.
To help funeral directors further prepare for 2021, we’ve come up with these top three tips.
1. Follow These Cybersecurity Best Practices.
According to Cybint Solutions, the FBI reported a 300% increase in reported cyberattacks since the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there are precautions you can take to protect your data. One is to create strong passwords that use a combination of upper- and lower-case letters, numbers, and characters. Also, avoid using well-known phrases. For example, passwords with your name or significant dates like funeraldirector1965 or examplefuneralhome1 aren’t secure passwords.
You also should watch out for suspicious content. Per Cybint Solutions, 95% of cyberattacks are caused by human error. This may mean clicking a link or opening an attachment that’s a virus. Some giveaways that an email is phishing are spelling and grammatical errors and overall strange language and formatting. A sense of urgency and too-good-to-be-true offers also are signs of phishing.
Hackers are getting sneakier, so you need to be extra careful. If an email appears to be from someone you know, always double check that the email address matches the name. When in doubt, it’s best to check with the person outside of your email to see if it's real.
To protect sensitive information, your firm’s website should have an SSL certificate. This protects the data sent between your browser and web server by scrambling it in a way that hackers can’t understand. Families also can easily tell if a website is secure by checking the URL. A URL with HTTPS is secure, while HTTP is not secure.
With a secure SRS Website, you can give families’ peace of mind when entering credit card credentials and other personal information.
2. Invest in Tools to Help You Work Remotely.
As a funeral professional, you’re constantly on the go, whether it’s meeting with the family or heading to the graveside service. As more things happen remotely, you basically need to have a portable office. Sounds difficult, right? But with the right tools, it doesn’t have to be!
It’s inevitable that the day of a funeral director can change at any moment. But by going into the day with a plan, you can be more productive. Instead of keeping track of everything in your head, write it down in a planner! Or, if you prefer a digital solution, there are many free planner apps to choose from. Some may even let you set up reminder notifications.
By investing in helpful gadgets, you can make the most of wherever your day takes you. For example, the last thing you need is your phone dying before a call with a family and no available outlets. By keeping a wireless charger in your bag, this is one less thing to worry about.
With V9 Online, your funeral management software goes where you go. Since it’s browser-based, you have the freedom to work from wherever on any device. Are you at home and need to access to client’s case? Not a problem! Or did something come up while you’re at your cabin? No worries! With V9 Online, you’re not restricted to one place.
3. Find Ways to Save Time.
By writing down the steps it takes to do a task from start to finish, you can see if there’s room for improvement. For example, write down the steps and estimated time it takes to complete a task. Then, see if any steps can be shortened or cut completely. Just make sure you don’t sacrifice the quality of the work with your changes.
If you’re manually completing tasks that could be automatically done by your technology solutions, it’s time to change your process! Invest in time-saving tools that can help you automate your funeral home’s processes! For example, instead of repeatedly entering the same information on funeral payment forms, your technology should automatically fill in this information for you after entering it once.
With 2-Minute Insurance Assignments, you just have to enter the deceased’s information once and the rest of the forms auto-populate with that data. We designed the entire claim submission process to save you time, as it only takes two minutes or less to submit a life insurance claim. Best of all? Your firm gets paid in as little as 24 hours. Talk about saving time!
Download our 2021 Holiday Wishlist to take advantage of exclusive deals on SRS products!
To help funeral directors further prepare for 2021, we’ve come up with these top three tips.
1. Follow These Cybersecurity Best Practices.
According to Cybint Solutions, the FBI reported a 300% increase in reported cyberattacks since the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there are precautions you can take to protect your data. One is to create strong passwords that use a combination of upper- and lower-case letters, numbers, and characters. Also, avoid using well-known phrases. For example, passwords with your name or significant dates like funeraldirector1965 or examplefuneralhome1 aren’t secure passwords.
You also should watch out for suspicious content. Per Cybint Solutions, 95% of cyberattacks are caused by human error. This may mean clicking a link or opening an attachment that’s a virus. Some giveaways that an email is phishing are spelling and grammatical errors and overall strange language and formatting. A sense of urgency and too-good-to-be-true offers also are signs of phishing.
Hackers are getting sneakier, so you need to be extra careful. If an email appears to be from someone you know, always double check that the email address matches the name. When in doubt, it’s best to check with the person outside of your email to see if it's real.
To protect sensitive information, your firm’s website should have an SSL certificate. This protects the data sent between your browser and web server by scrambling it in a way that hackers can’t understand. Families also can easily tell if a website is secure by checking the URL. A URL with HTTPS is secure, while HTTP is not secure.
With a secure SRS Website, you can give families’ peace of mind when entering credit card credentials and other personal information.
2. Invest in Tools to Help You Work Remotely.
As a funeral professional, you’re constantly on the go, whether it’s meeting with the family or heading to the graveside service. As more things happen remotely, you basically need to have a portable office. Sounds difficult, right? But with the right tools, it doesn’t have to be!
It’s inevitable that the day of a funeral director can change at any moment. But by going into the day with a plan, you can be more productive. Instead of keeping track of everything in your head, write it down in a planner! Or, if you prefer a digital solution, there are many free planner apps to choose from. Some may even let you set up reminder notifications.
By investing in helpful gadgets, you can make the most of wherever your day takes you. For example, the last thing you need is your phone dying before a call with a family and no available outlets. By keeping a wireless charger in your bag, this is one less thing to worry about.
With V9 Online, your funeral management software goes where you go. Since it’s browser-based, you have the freedom to work from wherever on any device. Are you at home and need to access to client’s case? Not a problem! Or did something come up while you’re at your cabin? No worries! With V9 Online, you’re not restricted to one place.
3. Find Ways to Save Time.
By writing down the steps it takes to do a task from start to finish, you can see if there’s room for improvement. For example, write down the steps and estimated time it takes to complete a task. Then, see if any steps can be shortened or cut completely. Just make sure you don’t sacrifice the quality of the work with your changes.
If you’re manually completing tasks that could be automatically done by your technology solutions, it’s time to change your process! Invest in time-saving tools that can help you automate your funeral home’s processes! For example, instead of repeatedly entering the same information on funeral payment forms, your technology should automatically fill in this information for you after entering it once.
With 2-Minute Insurance Assignments, you just have to enter the deceased’s information once and the rest of the forms auto-populate with that data. We designed the entire claim submission process to save you time, as it only takes two minutes or less to submit a life insurance claim. Best of all? Your firm gets paid in as little as 24 hours. Talk about saving time!
Download our 2021 Holiday Wishlist to take advantage of exclusive deals on SRS products!
It’s 2022. If you haven’t realized it already, it’s time to understand the importance of your funeral home website for your firm and community. From making funeral plans and paying the expenses to expressing condolences and learning about coping with grief, your website can do it all and so much more. Want to learn how? See how you can take your funeral home website to the next level in 2022 with these 22 must-have features. Create the Ultimate Interactive Obituary Experience . Give your families a space to grieve their loss, show their support, and honor their loved one with interactive memorial walls. With features for expressing condolences, posting photos, and sharing memories, everyone can heal and remember their loved one. Make Ordering Funeral and Sympathy Flowers Easy with an Online Store. By having an online store built directly onto your website, families can conveniently order funeral and sympathy flowers while visiting their loved one’s memorial page. Spread the Word About a Loved One’s Passing Through Social Sharing. With easy social sharing, you can let your families share their loved one’s obituary and condolences on social media to spread the word about their passing. Support Families Through Crowdfunding Campaigns. Another way to let families show their support is to have the option to donate to a funeral crowdfunding campaign directly on their loved one’s memorial wall. Include Your General Price List (GPL) on Your Funeral Home Website. Along with a breakdown of your products and services, you should include your GPL to be transparent with your families and build trusting relationships with them. Let Families Pay Directly on Your Website with an Online Payment Center. Many families want the convenience of online payments, so you can give them this with an online payment center for credit card payments and more . Give Your Families an Easy-to-Navigate Design on Any Device. No one wants to waste time finding what information they need, especially while at-need planning, so make sure your website is easy to navigate of any device. Have Forms for Families to Easily Enter Their Information. Instead of families calling your firm for everything they need, have forms that families can submit for preplanning, downloading resources, and more. Put Your Contact Information in an Easy-to-Locate Spot. If families want to call or visit your firm, don’t make it difficult for them to locate this information. Along with a Contact Us page, you should also include this information on your homepage. Provide Your Community with Grief and Funeral Planning Resources. Your website can be like an online library for families to learn about funeral planning and grief. For example, create a Resources page for your content and link to any other educational resources. Help Families Grieve and Stay Informed Through Email Subscriptions. Without any work required from your employees, let your families sign up for email subscriptions directly on your website, such as for grief support and obituary notifications. Share Frequently Asked Questions with Your Community. Many times, your employees repeatedly answer the same questions from families. To eliminate some of these repetitive questions, have a FAQ section on your website. Post Useful Information on Your Website’s Blog. Your firm’s website should have a blog for regularly sharing content about preplanning, at-need planning, personalizing a funeral, grieving, memorialization, and more. Secure Your Website with a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate. Giving your families a secure connection when entering sensitive information on your website is a must-have. To do this, your website should have an SSL Certificate. Eliminate Spam Through Sophisticated Spam Filters. Eliminate spam comments and messages with sophisticated spam filters. This way, grieving families don’t have the added pain of rude comments. Develop an SEO Strategy to Get Found by More Families Online. Make sure your website gets found by more families online by including things like meta descriptions for your webpages and keywords. Design a Logo that Represents Your Firm’s Brand. Your logo should be visually appealing and reflect your firm’s brand. If it’s been a while since you’ve revisited your logo design, it’s probably time to explore some new ideas. Tell Your Families About Your Firm’s History, Employees, and Mission. Your families want to know the people behind your firm and what you stand for , so make sure to include things like your firm’s mission to serve families, history in your community, and employee bios to help them better understand your goals. Take Professional Pictures of Your Firm and Merchandise. If your website photos are low quality, this can reflect negatively on your business. To prevent this, draw families to your firm by taking professional photos of your facility and merchandise. Showcase Testimonials from Your Firm’s Client Families. Give your community real-life examples of positive experiences families had working with your firm, whether they’re text or video-based testimonials. Route Families to the Funeral Location Through Text Directions. One way to make things easier for families is to have a tool directly on your website for sending directions to the funeral or graveside service right to their phones. Integrate with Your Other Favorite Funeral Technology Solutions. Lastly, your funeral home website should integrate with your other funeral technology solutions to save you time, such as your case management software and marketing automation software. Take your firm to the next level in 2022 by upgrading to an SRS Website. Click h ere to book a free demo .
2021 was a revolutionary year for the funeral industry, but in 2022, it’s time to take it to the NEXT LEVEL. If you haven’t already, now is the time more than ever to embrace the mobile revolution . With a little help from your technology solutions, you can meet your families’ needs anytime, anywhere while creating a faster and simpler process for your firm. For the sake of time, we’ll focus on three important aspects of your firm: Funeral Options Business Management Aftercare 2022 is already here , so there’s no time to waste. Let’s start with funeral options. Take Your Funeral Options to the Next Level: Give Families Online Choices Families want online options. It’s as simple as that. They’re used to it now, so they won’t settle for anything less. The pandemic showed them that a lot of their in-person tasks can be accomplished online in less time, such as: Using an app to place your grocery order ahead of time instead of wandering the store. Scanning your check with your mobile device and depositing it without ever leaving your couch. Or simply entering your credit card number online and pressing submit. Having virtual appointments with your doctor, accountant, and other professionals instead of meeting in person. You can apply these same concepts to the funeral industry. Instead of meeting with families in person for every task, some things can be done virtually, such as selecting their funeral options on your website through a pre-planning form, signing forms, collecting files, making the payment virtually , and meeting through video chat. Of course, this doesn’t replace in-person meetings. The purpose of these features is to take tedious tasks like filling out paperwork and swiping credit cards to a virtual environment. This way, you can save in-person meetings for building more meaningful connections with your families. So going back to the question, how can you take your funeral options to the next level in 2022? Give families more online choices. Instead of driving to your firm to pay for the expenses, sign a form, or give you documents, let them do it virtually in a matter of seconds. Not to mention that this is more secure than documenting things on paper. Take Your Business Management to the Next Level: Say Hello to Case Management Software Do you want to way to offer your families everything we’ve just covered and more all in one place? Say hello to funeral home case management software. As the popular saying goes, behind every successful funeral director is a turnkey case management system. Okay, maybe people don’t go around saying that, but they should because it’s true. Without an organized and easy-to-access system, your firm couldn’t function. But you can’t use just any system. Meet 9Online , the funeral industry’s elite management software. Instead of using third-party integrations that cost you more time and money, it has built-in features for signing forms electronically, collecting the payment virtually, communicating with families in a safe, virtual environment, and so much more . Take Your Aftercare to the Next Level: Focus on Your Marketing and Website Lastly, we can’t forget about aftercare. As you know, a family’s journey with grief is long from over once the funeral takes place. It’s something that they’ll carry with them for the rest of their lives. Though this may sound daunting, you can make things much easier for them by focusing on how your website and marketing efforts can help them. By building up your aftercare resources, it could even be the reason someone chooses to work with your firm over another one. For example, these are a few ways your website and marketing can improve your aftercare efforts in 2022 and beyond: Share blog posts, guides, and other resources on your firm’s website . Engage with families on social media through posts and ads. Use email nurturing to further engage with them and provide them with grief resources. We know this sounds like a lot, so that’s why we partnered with Growth Engine. It’s the first marketing automation software designed specifically for the funeral industry and you and your families’ needs. How cool is that? Click here to learn more about this platform. Book a free SRS demo to learn even more ways to boost your business performance and better serve your families.
We want to give a shout out to our incredible clients and their brand-new SRS Websites! Thank you for trusting SRS with your funeral home's website . We’re proud of every design and make sure they accurately represent your firm and provide you with the tools you need for success. Below are just a few of our favorite SRS Website designs from this fall. Lighthouse Funeral & Cremation Owner and Manager Tate C. Goodwin opened Lighthouse Funeral & Cremation in 2013. Today, they have several Michigan locations. On their new SRS Website, families can use E-Pay to make an online payment for their loved one’s funeral service expenses.