January 5, 2015
Joseph R. Finocchiaro, LFD, CFSP
The Personalization Challenge
It is no small secret that funeral homes that offer personalized, boutique service benefit from
increased call volume. Pick up any trade magazine or speak to any funeral supplier and ‘personalization’
has quickly become the standard that firms who are looking at the long term picture demand.
The American Board of Funeral Service Education has this topic in its curriculum outlines; in
other words, the impact of personalization on funeral services is necessarily taught in funeral
service/mortuary science programs. There are chapters on personalization in directing and
merchandising texts and even embalming textbooks state that each the professional embalmer must
observe the body and let the “body tell the embalmer” what treatments are required for preservation
and restoration. In effect, the embalming is a personalized experience tailored to the body.
I can’t speak for the students of other funeral service programs, but my experience over the last
two years in my funeral directing classes has shown that students who are leaving my program and
entering the workforce are ready to meet this “personalization challenge” and this translates also to
some good business practices.
1. Time
a. Time is essential. Time is required for the funeral director to be able to converse with
the family and gain information in order to be able to create touchpoints for the service.
In professional lingo this tied into ‘building rapport’. This information tailors the service
options for the family and also serves as the framework for an obituary. Students spend
roughly 2-4 hours in their groups (outside of class) to determine their action plan. This
coincides with a good amount of time a director should be with the family (2-3 hours) in
order to create a satisfactory arrangement. Students in the class have over 20 points to
identify and implement, 10 of which are specific personalization touchpoints.
2. Professional Expectations
a. I have to remind students every time that the personalization expectation is not set by
the funeral home or the owner. We are a service industry – the family will tell us what
they want and we should be nurturing that conversation. Some students have said “the
funeral home will never let that happen in their chapel”. Funeral establishments are
offering ‘dress down’ options to families where employees wear polos and khakis
instead of suit and ties. If we are going so far as to offer our services dressed as retail
store associates and car salesman, then I the prohibition of allowing a family to do
something non-traditional in our chapels is completely illogical. It’s their service, their
time, and their money. Two notable out of the box examples offered in the class:
© 2015 – Joseph Finocchiaro
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this
license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
i. Setting up a karaoke machine for a deceased person who loved karaoke. Sharing
included people singing some of the deceased’s favorite songs
ii. Setting up a video game system and having the option to play a game.
3. Encouraging AND Facilitating
a. It is not enough to encourage personalization. We encourage by saying “What a great
idea…” and adding the tagline “…When you can bring these items in for setup?”. We
facilitate it by adding to that statement “…What can we do to help you?”. Facilitating
requires active participation of the funeral establishment in making something happen.
In the classroom, this is done primarily by the instructor but I do have an example from
my professional practice:
i. Using the flower van to bring full length ship models to the funeral home on
display. Each model was no less than 2 foot in length. To keep costs down, I
assisted my manager on an after hours run for both pickup and delivery of the
models. Without this effort, family would have been limited to photos of the
models.
Out of all the groups which have completed this project, only one has come in at ‘Needs
Improvement” with the vast majority at the high end of “Satisfactory” and “Exemplary”. This one group
did exactly what is done at a funeral home – they took no chances given the opportunity and they were
the group that ‘only’ utilized a video game system on a TV (which is still ‘out of the box’) but missed 9
other touch points.
All projects are shared on my social media sites for the benefit of students and industry
professionals.
If you walk into a retail environment you will find plenty of products that you can pick up and
play with. This type of touch point creates “ownership”. In our industry, this is the best example of
personalization and will assist you in having your clientele pass other competing firms to receive the
experience they received at yours.
© 2015 – Joseph Finocchiaro
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this
license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.