SRS Turns Twenty
June 14, 2019
Founded in June 1999 in the basement of their first home in Wexford, PA, President Scott Simons and Vice President Kimberly Simons of SRS Computing have grown their startup to a full-service management software company serving the funeral industry and over 5000 locations.
SRS Computing now provides seven products, custom to funeral homes, crematories, cemeteries, and more, and is continuously offering new features and solutions. Scott and Kimberly work endlessly to grow SRS Computing and their dream of serving the funeral industry, and have cutting-edge plans for the future.
Take a look back on the full history of SRS Computing published in August 2015.
Company Spotlight – SRS Computing
Scott Simons is the son of a 3rd generation funeral director. Many of you can relate to that statement and understand all that goes along with it. Add to that, his sister, brother, uncle, and cousin are also directors at Simons Funeral Home in Pittsburgh. Getting crowded, right? Now you are wondering, did he follow in his father’s footsteps? Well, no and yes.
Scott Simons is also the President and founder of SRS Computing, the industry leader in Funeral Home, Cemetery and Crematory Software.
Scott’s pathway to founding SRS Computing started in the late 1970’s when his father, G. Scott Simons, purchased an IBM ‘green screen’ personal computer with the intent of eventually replacing his office typewriter. Armed with DBase I, a very early database programming language, G. Scott set out to write his own management program. “I remember it took me 2 weeks to figure out how to move a period over two spaces on the receipt! It was the beginning of computers on the desktop and I was determined to make it work,” commented G. Scott. After 2 years and many frustrating hours, he created a program that could record cases, invoices, payments and write billing and receipt letters that would print onto the programmable typewriter. Hours of typing were saved and probably the first funeral home management software program was born.
“I told my father, ‘You’re lucky, you start these families along the first steps in their healing, but I see them when they are losing hope.’”
After college, Scott earned a Master’s Degree in Radiation Physics and was working at Johns Hopkins University teaching and treating cancer patients. “My mother died of breast cancer and I had a vision that I could make a difference in cancer treatment. I took my work very personally and enjoyed collaborating with some of the most talented physicians in the world. We used cutting edge science that I hoped would change patient care. Honestly though, it was depressing watching people struggling in the final stages of their life,” Scott stated. “I told my father, ‘You’re lucky, you start these families along the first steps in their healing, but I see them when they are losing hope.’”
“It takes a strong team and a passion to be extraordinary and we have both.”
In 1993, building on the programming he learned as a child and in college courses, Scott took the first version of what his father wrote and created an application using the ‘latest and greatest’ programing language, Visual Basic. “I wrote it in my spare time and it was fun to delve into the new technologies. I did it to help my dad because once Windows took over, his original program would be obsolete along with his data. It was my small contribution to the funeral home,” said Scott. “At the time, I never had any intention of starting a software business.”
In 1999, after ten years of physics, Scott decided to make a career change. He was accepted into Carnegie Mellon’s prestigious business school and in the same summer, started SRS Computing. “It was perfect timing”, explained Scott. “We used SRS as the model for every project – Marketing, Finance, Entrepreneurship, Accounting, Strategy – the guys in my group would give me ideas every night and I would put the ideas to work the next day. It was like having five talented consultants on staff with zero salary.”
“My wife Kimberly joined SRS in the first week after a miserable afternoon of making sales calls. I just wasn’t a sales person and she is tremendous. Kimberly is a huge reason for SRS’ success. She lets me focus on managing the technology,” Scott states. “It takes a strong team and a passion to be extraordinary and we have both.”
SRS’ attention to customer service is rooted in Scott’s family’s business. “Growing up in a ‘funeral family’, I learned what it takes to provide quality service,” Scott said. “I remember dad taking a death call during Christmas Eve dinner and someone asked why he had to leave right away. Dad said, ‘It’s Christmas for us, but for that family, they just lost their grandmother and we need to go.’” SRS prides itself in serving their clients in a similar way. “You can pick up the phone and talk right away to one of the programmers who wrote the code. We take care of most issues on the initial call,” says Adam Best, Senior Programmer at SRS for eight years. “We’ve built a great program, but it is only as good as the support.”
SRS Computing is driven by Scott’s generational mix of a century of funeral service and his constant drive to lead this unique software industry. In a proud moment, Scott stated, “I’m surrounded by wonderfully talented people and we enjoy what we do. I’ve modeled SRS’s service as a funeral director expects to be treated and give them exceptional tools so they can serve their families better. It’s as close to being a 4th generation funeral director as I’ll ever get.”
For more information, please call us at, 800-797-4861.
Reprinted from American Funeral Director Magazine, August 2015, with permission of Kates-Boylston Publications. To subscribe to American Funeral Director visit www.americanfuneraldirector.com.
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.