As a deathcare practitioner, you play a crucial role in supporting families during one of the most challenging times of their lives. Grief is messy and unpredictable, and knowing how to offer compassionate and thoughtful support can make a significant difference. Here are five strategies to help you support grieving families effectively.

Elizabeth Kübler-Ross's five stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance—were based on observations of terminally ill patients. These stages are not universal or linear. Grief is deeply personal and unpredictable, more like a Choose Your Own Adventure book than a roadmap. Your role is to help families begin to navigate their unique journey through grief, and help them take care not to prescribe to a specific path or pattern.

It’s normal to feel uncomfortable when supporting someone who is grieving. Avoid using clichés or making unhelpful remarks like, "He's in a better place," or "At least you can have more children." These comments can inadvertently diminish their grief. Instead, acknowledge your discomfort and offer sincere support: "Sometimes it’s hard to know what to say, but I want you to know I’m here for you.” This honesty shows grieving individuals that they are not alone and that their feelings are valid.

Grief can linger for weeks, months, or even years. As a deathcare practitioner, you can help families find the additional support they need. Keep a list of local resources, such as group counseling or therapy, that may benefit them. Websites like ForGrief.com connect grieving individuals with a range of support options, including downloadable resources, Grief Chats™ with professionals, community support, and online courses tailored to their needs. Share these resources on your website, via your social media outlets, or as part of your aftercare program. Providing these resources shows that you care about their long-term well-being.

Grieving is emotionally and physically exhausting, and people may feel guilty about taking breaks from their grief. Encourage them to take "grief breaks” during the funerary activities. Similar to recess for kids, activities like a brief walk or simply few moments away from the events can help a person who is grieving to recharge. Remind your families that taking time to rest does not minimize their grief nor encourage denial. Instead, it helps them maintain their strength to continue their grieving process.

Working with grieving families daily can lead to death and grief overload. To be at your best for your families, it's crucial to care for yourself. Use resources to assess your own burnout level and ensure you’re getting the support you need. Taking vacations, exploring hobbies outside the deathcare and grief space, and making time for exercise are all beneficial. During working hours, check in with your staff after particularly challenging arrangements, encourage regular breaks, and set reminders to stay hydrated. These practices will help maintain your well-being and effectiveness, and help you help those who are grieving.

Remember, grief has no timeline. In your role, your support means offering compassion and respect, walking the path with those who are grieving, and letting them know they are not alone. You don’t need to have all the answers—your presence and willingness to help are often enough. By employing these strategies, you can make a meaningful difference in the lives of grieving families, providing them with the support and understanding they need during such a difficult time.

In my work as a suicidologist and thanatologist, I have observed that suicide is one of the most misunderstood causes of death in our society and that our culture has stigmatized and silenced suicide with devastating results for individual survivors and communities. Approximately one million people die every year of suicide worldwide, leaving millions of grievers who are bereaved due to suicide death loss, yet often, survivors feel the weight of suicide stigma and do not receive the supportive and helpful responses they need to navigate their complex grief journeys.

When I work with students and clients who want to support someone they care about who has lost a loved one to suicide, the most frequent concerns they express are, “I don’t know how to help them,” and “I don’t know what to say.” These frustrations are understandable – we live in a culture that often silences open and educationally-supported conversations about suicide, so many people feel at a loss for how to assist a loved one’s grief journey after suicide.
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It is my hope that the following information will assist you in being an empathic and helpful presence in the lives of suicide loss survivors.

In my blog post, “Surviving Suicide Stigma,” I discuss several of the most harmful myths still circulating in dominant culture:

• Suicide is always the result of clinical depression.
• The suicide death was a “quick fix” for problems that could easily have been solved or an “easy way out.”
• If we talk about suicide, or about a loved one who died of suicide, we may risk becoming suicidal or causing another person to become suicidal.
• Suicide is an act of cowardice or personal weakness; while everyone feels badly sometimes, suicide is “wrong,” “selfish,” or “weak.”

Several of these myths stem from the ultimate misunderstanding of suicide, the belief that it is an act of free will or a rational choice. In fact, we now understand that suicide is a complicated phenomenon rooted in pain. Usually, there are many sources of pain – psychological, sociological, spiritual, and even biological – that accumulate for some people who are suicidal until the pain becomes so great that the suicidal person literally cannot see another way to end their pain.
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If we can understand that someone who died of suicide was experiencing complex suffering and that suicide was the product of a mind that was not working right, then we can begin to be of support to suicide loss survivors without the confusion and stigma that myths about suicide reinforce.

Because of the intense stigma associated with suicide, suicide loss survivors may internalize feelings of guilt and shame on their own behalf and on behalf of their deceased loved one. These feelings are often reinforced by thoughtless or harmful responses from co-workers, friends, and family members. In recent years, social media has increased incidences of suicide loss survivors feeling shamed and isolated, both through posted speculation about the death and judgment, often from people not even known to the survivor.

The shame and isolation often experienced by survivors complicates their already-difficult grief over the loss. As we know, all grief experiences are unique, but for suicide loss survivors, the interpersonal and institutional responses they receive following the death can introduce unique elements to their responses to the death. In the months following a suicide death loss, many survivors report an increase in physical problems such as brain fog, insomnia, gastrointestinal issues, and chronic headaches. The sociological stressors due to silence and shame may increase survivors’ isolation and make them less likely to reach out for support. Psychologically, suicide loss survivors are at high risk for disenfranchised grief and prolonged grief. And while studies differ in terms of numbers, we also know that primary survivors of a suicide death loss are at higher risk for developing suicidality over the course of their lifetime.
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Being a suicide loss survivor is like being in a club that you never wanted to join. I encourage survivors to speak to others bereaved by suicide because it can be easier to tell their stories without fear of judgment, but it is equally important that people who have never lost a loved one to suicide feel equipped to support loved ones who have.

Use appropriate and non-criminalizing language. Instead of using terms like “committed suicide” or “killed himself,” use language that demonstrates that you understand that the person who died was not a criminal for their suicidality but was suffering: “John died of suicide.”

Acknowledge the pain of the person who died. “John’s death is a tragedy. I am so sorry that he was in so much pain that he could not see another way to end that pain.”

Do not ask inappropriate questions. Asking someone about the specific means by which their loved one died of suicide, the condition of their body, or other details that can provoke trauma responses is never appropriate.

Practice empathy. Work to dismantle any biases you might hold about suicide and try to resist mapping your own belief system or judgments onto survivors. Be receptive to the feelings they can identify or express, and validate all of those feelings. Survivors may be experiencing shock, anger, and confusion in addition to other grief responses – be ready for it and be patient.

Follow their lead. When talking with a suicide loss survivor, give them space to tell the story of their loss without probing them. After a suicide death, survivors may talk about the timeline of the day of death in minute detail in an attempt to come to terms with the reality of the loss. They may be very repetitive, or they may not want to talk about the details at all in the early days following the loss.

Engage in attuned listening. When talking to a suicide loss survivor, maintain eye contact, demonstrate that you are hearing them, and engage in non-threatening physical touch if appropriate. Importantly, do not look away if they begin to cry.

Keep confidentiality. If a suicide loss survivor shares details, feelings, or worries related to their loss, assure them that you will not share that information with others. Because of the stigma associated with suicide, having someone trustworthy in which to confide is crucial to survivors feeling supported.

Offer to help them make meaning of the loss. While everyone’s trajectory of mourning is different, many suicide loss survivors actively seek to make meaning from the loss, either through doing public education on suicide, creating public memorialization of their loved one through scholarships or other donations, or via community involvement for suicide prevention. While I would not advise encouraging survivors to throw themselves into these kinds of activities in the first few months following a suicide death loss, I have seen the value in them for many survivors even years after the loss has occurred. If the person who died valued education, ask if you can start a scholarship fund in their loved one’s name. If they were a nature lover, ask if you can organize a tree planting for them.

Help them remember the life of their loved one. Those bereaved due to suicide do not ever forget their loved one, though strangely, they often report friends and family not talking about the loved one after the first few weeks of the loss. Do not be afraid to speak the name of the person who has died, share memories you have of them, or remind the person you care about of memories they had told you about with their loved one. Because our culture often reduces the life of someone who has died of suicide simply to their cause of death, it is both valuable and meaningful to remember the birthday and date of death of the deceased and check in on those days. It can also be immeasurably helpful to talk about the person who has died regularly in conversations, acknowledging their interests, work, hobbies, and unique qualities, rather than only talk about their death.

This year, International Survivors of Suicide Loss Day is Saturday, November 18, 2023. As both a suicidologist and suicide death loss survivor, I will be spending the day thinking of the lives that ended tragically and honoring the pain with which they suffered prior to their deaths. I will also be thinking of all the other suicide death loss survivors I have known and wishing for them an easing of their grief. Finally, I will be renewing my promise to help end the epidemic of suicide in our culture in hopes for a future in which so many are not lost and so many are not bereaved.

Thank you for your commitment to supporting the suicide loss survivors in your life.

Growing up as the daughter of a traditional funeral director, I never would have imagined that five decades later I would be caring for those grieving the loss of a pet. Back in 1972, when my father first began taking calls from clients wanting burial and cremation services for their pets, it was considered “taboo.” In other words, “People just wouldn’t understand.” I have vivid memories of my father telling stories of how clients would request that he arrive in an unmarked vehicle and that he come after dark because they did not want their neighbors to know they were caring for their pet in this way. Can you imagine not being able to openly grieve or mourn a loss that was so emotionally devastating to you?

Fast forward to today, where, according to the American Pet Products Association, over 67% of the US population now owns a pet, and 45% own more than one pet. Expenditures for pets are expected to surpass $99 billion in 2020, so it is easy to see that our pets have truly become members of the family. In fact, a 2001 survey from the American Animal Hospital Association revealed that 83% of pet owners refer to themselves as pet parents. For those with value added services marketing to the pet sector, how care is communicated to those pet parents is important and can be the difference in building and sustaining lifelong relationships with pet families.

Did you know the human-animal bond dates back more than 16,000 years? Burials for pets have been found in Germany from 14,000 BCE, in North America from 11,000 BCE, and China from 7,000 BCE. Alexander the Great owned a mastiff named Peritas. When Peritas died, Alexander led a sizeable funeral procession and burial, erected a large monument, and ordered the locals to honor his dog’s death every year with a festival. The human-animal bond is strong. Whether it is a furry child to empty-nesters, a best friend to the children in a family, or an only companion during a major adult life change, we should not be surprised when a pet parent seems to be “over the top” in how they choose to honor their beloved furry family member.

The grief can be overwhelming. I’ve often heard, “This has been more difficult than losing a human family member.” The bond with a pet is like no other relationship; there is no emotional baggage, there is just pure, unconditional love. That can be hard to find by today’s standards. It is no wonder that pet parents today are seeking more personalized caring services for their beloved furry family members.
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Whether it’s holding a viewing with family and friends, conducting an informal ceremony to scatter cremated remains, taking part in a witness cremation, or being able to choose the perfect personalization for the right urn, pet parents don’t just want choices – they need choices. As pet bereavement experts, it is important that we don’t shut those opportunities off during the decision-making stage. Making sure these options are known to the pet parent can become part of their healing process. Like planning a service for any human, we shouldn’t assume every pet parent desires the “standard service.” Pet parents need to be able to honor the emotional bond they held with their beloved furry family.

I recently had the honor of working with Jennifer Werthman, Education Director for CANA, and Debra Bjorling, owner of Hamilton Pet Meadow in New Jersey and Past President of the IAOPCC. We were working collaboratively to develop the new, online version of the IAOPCC’s Pet Bereavement Certification Level 1 Program. As we talked through the many phases of the program and the more unusual stories of grief that we had experienced with pet parents, it struck me as to how universally similar the stories often were. At the heart of every pet parent is the need to grieve, the need to know they are being heard, and the need for an empathetic and understanding voice.

After 32 years of working with pet parents, I know it can be easy to find yourself on autopilot and focusing on the details of the arrangements, urn personalization, and memorials rather than the grieving person in front of you. But I also know that what determines a lasting relationship with any pet parent is being able to effectively communicate care and concern for their loss and express a willingness to actively listen to their pain.

We all are aware of the varying stages of grief: Shock, Denial and Disbelief, Anger, Guilt, and Resolution. But are we committed to communicating well at every stage of a pet parent’s grief, both verbally and non-verbally? Knowing what to say and what not to say to a pet parent who is experiencing shock, profound sadness or unbridled anger is important. It can calm or escalate a situation.

We live in a culturally diverse society with different backgrounds, religious affiliations and beliefs about pet death. Words can have consequences. Make sure you and your staff know how to respond to that inevitable question that anyone dealing in pet aftercare has been asked: “Will I see my pet in Heaven?” How you answer can have profound consequences. We all know words have impact and making sure we are dedicated to best practices for ourselves and our staff can be life-changing for others. Training in pet bereavement is the key to good foundational practices.

Our non-verbal cues have just as great of an impact. Our body language, tone of voice, and inflection convey a lot to a pet parent who is overcome by grief. Because you are dealing with families in a highly emotional state, your body language and vocal tone are essential to creating rapport and building trust. People know when you are being real and when you are giving “pat answers.” Being authentic is important. As anyone working with pet parents will tell you, a pet parent can always spot another pet parent!
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One of the more exciting sections of our online program covers these detailed specifics. It provides a real opportunity to check ourselves, our language, our demeanor, the way we carry our body, and the pace at which we move. We learn how to responsively listen and how to apply reflective listening dramatically improving our communication skills to grieving families.

During our work together, I found myself learning new ideas, getting a refresher on my non-verbal cues, and forming new de-escalation and de-stressor techniques. It can be a challenge to work with pet parents who have an especially difficult time due to extenuating circumstances. Whether it is a lack of social support, pre-existing mental health conditions or an emotional sense of responsibility for the death of the pet, these challenges can require inside knowledge of how to best serve the pet parent. As we built the course, we were able to share direct personal experiences of unusual circumstances and unique requests – how do you respond when a pet parent asks you to remove the paw for them? How do you react and what do you say to a pet parent that is convinced their pet is still breathing?

We laid out important steps to take when approaching challenges, including emergency situations requiring immediate medical assistance – when do you call for help? Asking the right questions, knowing how to identify key risk factors and finding ways to take quick and decisive action is important for us to know, and, more importantly, for our staff to know as well. Education and training on how to handle difficult situations before they arise is key for all of us!

As a third-generation family business, my father, Doyle L. Shugart, raised my brothers and I to believe that we are each here on purpose and for a purpose. We all have a higher calling in life, and how you prepare for that calling can impact and change the lives around you. As a past president of the IAOPCC, he was dedicated to continued education. In fact, the IAOPCC’s Educational Scholarship is named in his memory. Making sure we take advantage of every training opportunity available at our fingertips is the only positive during this post-pandemic time. Making sure we as well as our staff are well-trained and prepared to handle any and every situation in a culturally divisive world should remain at the top of our priorities – it can be the difference in building and sustaining relationships and your business.

My father often referenced the famous quote attributed to Maya Angelou, impressing it on us: “People may forget what you did for them, but they will never forget how you made them feel.” Forty-nine years after he started our family business, his words still ring true. Your actions can have a profound impact on a pet parent’s grief experience. Learning best practices ensures your families receive all of the options, the best possible care, and your professional expertise to ease the burden of their loss.

The first US hospice was established in 1974 and viewed as an alternative to current heathcare options for those at the end of life. Kim explained that, in many cases, traditional healthcare establishments were not welcoming, so hospice professionals had to fight for respect. The largest growth of hospice care providers in America occurred after Congress passed legislation in 1982 to create a Medicare hospice benefit allowing Medicare/Medicaid to fund hospice care. As of 2014, there were 6,100 hospices nationwide and more entering the market every year.

Most hospice care is not a non-profit endeavor but rather care provided by for-profit organizations and keenly attuned to demographics, networking, market shares and the competition. Ernie described that hospice organizations have changed significantly from the volunteer-based approach some of us may remember from the early days of hospice care and now have first-class marketing graphics and a business plan to match. The close personal relationship of a hospice care provider with surviving family members does not end with the patient’s death but can extend for more than a year after.

Ernie researched and reported many of the following statistics from the website of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.

Hospice care providers are a very special, caring group of people. They are held in high regard by the families they serve. Their opinions and advice are trusted. They are passionate, dedicated, and tenacious. There is little turnover, and even those who do leave often move to another hospice.

No other healthcare professional actively talks to family about the end of a life and planning the way a hospice care provider does. Kim explained that they do whatever is in their power to reunite families and meet patients’ needs, they are flexible and open-minded, and they figure out how to provide the best end-of-life experience possible. Ernie recommends the chapter “The Power of Presence” in Doug Manning’s book, The Funeral, to appreciate the connection and relationship hospice care providers have with families.

Almost half of all deceased people in the US last year were under hospice care before they ever got to a funeral home, crematory, cemetery, or anatomical gift registry. That’s significant, because unless you have a great community engagement program, a family’s first contact about funeral plans is hospice staff. Social workers ask patients and families about their wishes and intentions long before you see them. Statistically, these caregivers have built a very personal relationship with almost half of these families immediately prior to the death of their loved ones. If that doesn’t motivate you to think about what you’re doing in your community and your hospice outreach, I don’t know what will.

The average length of hospice stay is about 70 days. That’s a long time to create a relationship with the family. 59% of hospice patients receive in-home care. Hospice staff go in, day after day, and build that relationship and gather the details of their lives and their family dynamics. It’s a very different situation – we get three days, they get almost three months to hold those really hard conversations about really hard parts of a patient’s life. In that role, they become trusted advisors and the go-to people for all things related to death and dying.

The average hospice caregiver, no matter how well-intentioned, only knows as much about funeral service as someone who goes to a lot of funerals. Most are invited, and attend, many patient’s services and thus see many local funeral homes. But, there’s no aspect of hospice training that goes into the ins and outs of funeral service.

We use a lot of trade-specific information and technical jargon that is confusing to families and just as confusing to those caregivers. And if these people go to a lot of funerals, it means they go to a lot of bad ones, too. What does that caregiver think after they leave? If the next family asks, “What should we do?” they might not recommend your funeral home because they remember that bad service.

Some funeral directors ask, “Why do they tell them to do the cheapest thing?” Kim reminds us that the social worker has seen their hospital bills, heard about maxed-out credit cards, and sat with the widow afraid of losing the house after losing her husband. That social worker is not concerned about whether the funeral home is interested in offering an upgraded casket. If the social worker sees you trying to sell the family anything, they might remind them that they don’t need it. It’s not right or wrong—it’s just the way it is. We can talk about “that’s not her role” or “the family might have wanted to do something nice and she took their choice away,” but you’re talking about a dynamic where she was protecting them. Hospice social workers and caregivers take their role as advocates very seriously. They value collaboration. That means if you can create a relationship and build trust, you can position yourself as an advocate of the family, and you can collaborate on the process. If they see you acting in the best interest of their families, they will support you.

By the time the hospice family comes to the funeral home, you need to understand what they’ve been through. You are professional and passionate members of funeral service, but terminal illness is different. In a hospice situation, the family often has the opportunity to come together and say goodbye. Sometimes, they’ve done it three or four times. They’ve done the first part of the grieving process. They've had a lot of time to talk about death, to think about death, and often have additional support via hospice resources to prepare and guide them. The family is often present at the time of death, and it’s not unusual for them to have a brief ceremony right then. Kim explains that, the presence of the family, the words of the chaplain, the goodbye to their loved one – after that, they may not need a traditional funeral to process their grief. And it’s important for funeral professionals to understand that.

That’s not to say that there isn’t need or opportunity for service and ceremony, but we must remember that those in hospice have declined for a long time. Their survivors often say “I don’t want people to see my loved one like that.” It’s hard for families to think about a visitation because of the change that illness has brought. They don’t want their friends and families to remember the deceased that way, or worse, not recognize their loved one anymore. But they don’t necessarily understand what you can do about that. They don't always understand how body preparation can make a big difference—whether they agree to full embalming (which can reduce swelling or return moisture) or merely a shave and a haircut (which can make them look like themselves again).

Lastly, you know that these families are spread out, so they’ve spent time and money on travel in addition to the financial costs of long-term care, lost time at work and time with their immediate families. They are exhausted physically, emotionally, and financially. And this stress has likely heightened any kind of disagreements about medical care and funeral planning.

Developing a meaningful relationship with hospice care providers in the community is not about dropping off cookies at Christmas. It is a commitment to education that can benefit all concerned, providing the families we mutually serve with seamless and meaningful end-of-life transition. Ernie provides three key strategies for starting your hospice relationship:

Dr. Alan Wolfelt, internationally acclaimed grief counselor, author and educator, has said “Education starts with understanding the people we serve.” To that point, it is helpful to review the demographic and societal statistics of your community, understand how these facts dramatically impact end-of-life service providers, and embrace the adaptations needed by the profession—including further education and training—in order to remain prospectively relevant to contemporary consumers.

Like Ernie says, life is about relationships and experiences. We are in the business of celebrating the life of the individual by recognizing how they touched the lives of others. Our mission is to orchestrate and direct a meaningful ceremony with compassion, flexibility and options and in way that is as unique as the person who died.

This post is tagged "business" and "cremation" and that's an apt description. Tom Anderson admits that updated pricing is not a cure-all for falling revenue, but he explains how a deliberate and thoughtful evaluation of your policies can lead to careful reasoning that will support your cremation families and encourage memorialization. There are ways to add value to even direct cremation packages without significant cost, which in the end often pays off as additional revenue.
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THE BOTTOM LINE: Do you make it easy for families to plan with you? Do you educate while you assist in the arrangement room?

Short answer: sort of. Nathan Nardi post's stuck out to us because his look at social trends in US CDC data aligns with some of CANA's own research into the demographics of cremation families. Cremation families are typically highly educated and higher income while casketed burial families are typically homeowners who have lived in their communities for multiple generations.
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THE BOTTOM LINE: What community are you serving and how does understanding them help you meet their needs?

Larry Stuart, Jr. knows exactly what the details of his service will be and, no surprise, he’s not shopping for the low-cost cremation provider. Like one of CANA’s most popular posts, Just Cremate Me, Larry reminds us that we can’t lessen the pain of those we leave behind, especially not through cremation-and-landfill method.
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THE BOTTOM LINE: How can you show your cremation families that they are valuable and worth remembering?

You've heard it a million times, you have to educate cremation families. Whether it's because death is too sanitized, we're not trusted, general fear of mortality, or something else, as a society, we don't like to think about death. To many, cremation seems like the simplest way to avoid it but it can't be avoided. So Mark Allen of the Order of the Golden Rule provides a script to help.

The imagined conversation with John Q. Public (fully-bearded and chest out, no less) is as informative as it is funny.
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THE BOTTOM LINE: What has worked best for you to tell cremation families why they matter?

Family protectiveness meets "professional empathy" in this post where Matthew Morian of the Millennial Directors, reminds us that it's the little things that make a difference to our families – even the direct cremation ones. The little details surrounding the arrangements become second nature to funeral directors and we often forget to discuss them with the family. But it's all those little details that the family craves, and often misunderstand or misconstrue when we gloss over them. Taking time to explain them is one way to set yourself apart from the competition when it comes to exceptional service.
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THE BOTTOM LINE: You know that a typical work day for you is far from the typical day for the families you serve. How can you keep the boring part of your work fresh for the experience of your families?

Many people have theorized that our society experiences many "little deaths": moving away, our own or a loved one's divorce, changing jobs, and, in this case, the donation of a favorite stuffed animal. The CANA Historian, Jason Engler, is particularly suited to reflecting on how quickly things can change and encourages us to make each goodbye count for the families we serve.
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THE BOTTOM LINE: No one wants to say goodbye, so what can we do to make that goodbye just a tiny bit easier?

Like most funeral directors, Glenda Standsbury hadn't preplanned. And that's surprising -- funeral directors advocate for preplanning, see too often the questions that pile up without a plan, and are reminded of mortality daily. After walking away from a major accident, Glenda felt that she'd escaped death once and reminds us all that "none of us should assume that we'll be here tomorrow to take care of the details."
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THE BOTTOM LINE: It's not just your funeral to pre-plan, but your business and estate. Do you have a succession plan?

One of biggest values of choosing cremation is the time it gives the grieving to make decisions. ASD's Public Relations Specialist, Jessica Farren, shares her deeply personal story of grief and remembering her father for who he was. Her honest reflection and her descriptive style makes this story vivid and relatable.
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THE BOTTOM LINE: Cremation is not just a cost consideration -- it's an immediate answer to a question of "what now?" that allows for services months, years, or a decade, after a death. How can you support cremation families throughout their grief journey?

This blog post from the Corporation des thanatologues du Québec (CTQ) addresses a problem we’re all too aware of: cremated remains going home. The post highlights a creative ad campaign run by Athos asking “Is this your last wish?” and encouraging people to contact a cemetery (in this case an Athos one, of course) to find a “placement of dignity and respect.”
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THE BOTTOM LINE: We know from several recent headlines that risks of keeping the urn at home can lead to dramatic and depressing indignities — and that too many consumers don’t know their options for placement. How can you help your cremation families connect with the urn and educate about memorialization?

If we asked, “Do you know your community?” most of you would say, “Yes, I know the community I serve.” You know the demographics, you know the population, you know the general make up of it. Yes, you know your community.

But your own personal experiences shape your view of the communities you serve. If we encourage you to broaden your perspective, you’ll find resources and tools to help you look at your community from outside your personal experiences—perhaps shedding a new light and a providing a new vision.
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If you are reading this post, you are not satisfied with a simple answer or benchmark and are ready to move beyond business as usual. Congratulations to you! You’re eager to position your business more strategically.

You have data that paints an overall picture of the market: disposition data, what motivates consumers, what they’re buying, etc. Understanding statistics is a good way to forecast your business’s future. Start with the data you collect at your funeral home. Train your directors and apprentices on the specific things that should be entered into your computer software. From this, you can tell where your deaths come from, the ZIP code, the average age, the race, the average cremation sales average—all with just a few requests through the software program.
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Then there are trusted sources of information for our industry to get a big picture of the forces at work.

• CANA Annual Statistics Reports, http://www.cremationassociation.org/IndustryStatistics
  • Until May 31, access CANA’s full 2017 report for free!: gocana.org/GetCANAStats
• The Funeral and Memorial Information Council (FAMIC) Wirthlin Study, http://www.famic.org/index.php/famic-study
• IBISWorld, http://www.ibisworld.com/
• Funeral Service Insider, http://www.kates-boylston.com/index.aspx?page=fsi

Be sure to visit your local public library. It can be a great resource for accessing and interpreting business data.

Assume that you do nothing to expand or change services to cremation families over the next five years. Find the cremation rate of your state or province and your business. Compare those rates against the rate of cremation growth and your total calls. Think about your sales averages now and consider what they will look like projected in the coming years. Ensure your casketed burial sales are not subsidizing your cremation sales. The number of deaths is increasing but so is the cremation rate, both of which are projected to increase for the next 20+ years.

Initiate this exercise with your staff at the next staff meeting: Engage them in tracking a variety of your business transactions. Keep a record of each keepsake sold, each special request fulfilled, etcetera and log them in your software to help you build a better data set and transform your numbers into solid metrics. An added benefit to this training is your staff becoming more conscious of interactions and opportunities. Discuss the trends and experiences you all have regularly to learn from each other. New package opportunities may emerge. Trends and feedback may drive marketing language. Your people, employees, colleagues and families are your best champions through their own behavior and interactions.

As the cremation rate climbs, steadily, with an anticipated plateau north of 70%, metrics and statistics become increasingly important. Cremation customers want personalized experiences and therefore your service offerings will be transformed. Your revenue mix becomes more complex and margins shrink so every family served matters. Every option every time can be overwhelming, or it can be your core.

The number of deaths are increasing and will do so for the next 20+ years. The cremation percentage, and therefore numbers, will also increase. So now,

• What does this mean for your business?
• How will you define your business in a crowded cremation marketplace? ​

​WHAT'S YOUR BLIND SPOT?
We all have them. Those unknowable unknowns that no book, report, or presentation will answer. We assert that your blind spot is understanding who your competition is and how much market share you hold. It is nearly impossible to quantify as businesses become more specialized and competition more fierce. Keep counting obituaries and tracking your nearby funeral homes and cremation societies. But be aware of other sources of competition. For instance, the statewide online service that offers direct cremation and provides solutions to boomers making arrangements out of state.

After reviewing your data, you may find you need to grow. Look at the numbers again and determine how much you need to grow to remain profitable in your developing market. Then calculate whether that amount of growth is possible—and we’ll go ahead and tell you that yes, it is entirely doable! Let’s look at three main strategies for growth: acquisition, organic growth within your current market, and redefining your market.
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“But we’ve been trying to grow for several years and so far it hasn’t worked!” you say? That means you’ve got to do something new. This blog post will ask you to do something a little different, to think a little bit outside of your norm, and help you understand why there is value in that. Let’s look at what this means financially. Look at your data and look at your goal in terms of sales revenue. Let’s say that 20% growth is 20 additional calls and $140,000 of additional revenue. Long-term, that’s $100,000 in profit and an additional $500,000 in business value. Imagine if you increased those figures. So, we ask you, “Is it worth it to look at things differently and to really understand the community?”

Achievement through organic growth, means getting more from the resources that you currently have. The easiest way is to start by asking consumers how they chose you, typically in your aftercare survey. For many of families, the choice is based on personal experience. They already know the funeral director or firm. This means you want to get your funeral directors active in the community to build that awareness so that when the worst happens, people will look to you for support. Some consumers are motivated simply by location and convenience. You can’t relocate, but you can look at ways to make your location more convenient. What can you do to bring people back into your funeral home on a more regular basis so it’s part of their lifestyle?

In both cases, you want to take a look at your Aftercare and Outreach programs. Open your doors to the community to reach new sectors. Interact with them so they get to know your staff and build those relationships. Find ways to bring people into your funeral home at times that are not the emotional stress of a funeral, but throughout the year on an ongoing basis. Get people involved through social media and raise awareness of the funeral branch.
Your aftercare survey tells you about families you’ve already served and how to find more people like them—but for organic growth, you’ll need to look at the demographic data to understand your broader community.
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A good place to start is evaluating your self-imposed service area. How did those boundaries get drawn? Your consumer doesn’t know that you’re constrained to a particular geographic area, so maybe you can push those borders a little further. Will your community drive a little farther for your services if you demonstrate the value they provide? Then take a look at pre-need. If you already have a program in place, look at the ages of your population. If 20% or more of the total population is 55 or older, you have what’s considered a “target-rich community” for pre-need. What can you do with your business and with your existing resources to capture additional calls through pre-need? Again, there is opportunity here.

DEMOGRAPHIC DATA SOURCES
There are so many data sources for demographic information that can serve as a great starting point.

• Small Business Administration, https://www.sba.gov/content/demographics
• Pew Research Center, http://www.pewresearch.org/
• The American Fact Finder, http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/index.xhtml
• U.S. Department of Labor, http://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.us.htm
• Migration Policy Institute, http://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/state-immigration-data-profiles
• State Public Health, http://healthyamericans.org/states/
• The Administration for Community Living, https://www.acl.gov/aging-and-disability-in-america/data-and-research
• City Data, http://www.city-data.com/
• EASI Demographic on Demand, http://www.easidemographicsondemand.com/

Be sure to visit your local public library where they’ll have local and county reports on demographic data. It can be a great resource for accessing and interpreting demographic and business data.

The third strategy is hardest to sell because it’s time- and effort-intensive. If you can do more with what you have, are you willing to go beyond what is traditionally considered your market and proactively look at the total market? Can you market your business as a funeral home for everyone in the community? Is there value in changing your marketing program? Look at the numbers and interpret what they’re really telling you.

Examine the growth of the minority sections of the community. The funeral home of the future will need to respond to all of the growing and developing cultures in the community. Even if you stay in your primary market area today, your market is changing. You need to start establishing new relationships in the community, changing your reputation so that you are the best funeral home for the entire community.
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No matter where you are on the spectrum of cultural diversity, the more you reach out to understand and interact with the community, the more you can identify opportunities for growth. And this might not mean other ethnicities or religions. As CANA’s own demographic research pointed out, cultural shifts are occurring at every level and your old standby methods will not continue to serve us for long.

It’s very easy for us to tell you how to do this. It’s easy to list these options and describe how they work in theory. But we know it’s not always so easy to implement these changes.

We also know that there are many resources out there. Go back to the start of this post and you’ll see recommendations for finding statistics reports and evaluating your situation. Look at your community. Evaluate your choices and envision the changes you might make. It may be scary to do this, but it’s even scarier not to.

Recently, Michigan consumer media was alarmed to learn that a funeral home had stored cremated remains in a storage locker. Worried about nefarious dealings, reporters asked if this indicated criminal activity. Asked for comment, the Michigan Funeral Directors Association assured that possession and storage of unclaimed cremated remains is common.

Indeed, the new owners of the funeral home had followed best practices by identifying the cremated remains and attempting to find families. The previous owner encountered what many do – the families had abandoned the cremated remains at the funeral home. Under Michigan law, cremated remains only need to be stored for six months before they can be respectfully placed, but the staff at many funeral homes balk at taking further action. They are troubled by the idea that cremated remains could be irrevocably separated from loved ones.
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A recent issue of The Cremationist discussed this very topic. The answer, simply, is to take proactive steps to emphasize the value of permanent placement in all discussions with families and to encourage them to make a deliberate decision. For many, cremation is valued because it adds time and flexibility to make these important decisions, so they tend to endlessly defer them. Three industry professionals offered their recommendations for helping families make a choice that is right for them and appropriate for the storage space available in their funeral home.

A QUESTION OF VALUE BY STEVEN PALMER
The question I pose to families choosing cremation is, “what would you do for a final decision if you hadn't selected cremation?” Now ultimate determinations must be considered.

To assist them in this thought process, I tell them not to think in the short term, but think eternally. If a casket is placed in a permanent resting place, why not an urn? Scattering is an option only to be chosen when it is well thought out and meaningful. It should not be performed because “we couldn't think of anything else.”

Other options to suggested may be:

Family Heritage Plot: Where are your grandparents or great-grandparents buried? In a large family lot back home? I am sure that there is space for an urn to reunite family.

Veterans Cemeteries: When an employee's husband died and was cremated, I suggested he be placed in a local national cemetery, taking advantage of this no cost benefit he had earned. She mentioned his mother's urn needed final placement somewhere. I inquired whether her father-in-law was a veteran. He was, an honorable discharge and marriage certificate were produced and, even though the father-in-law was interred in another state, she was eligible. Son and mother were placed in side by side niches without additional cost to the family.

Other more contemporary placements such as niches along a cemetery walkway or base of a statue or even being part of a reef placed in the ocean. Creative thinking can solve this indecision.

DEALING WITH CREMATED REMAINS BY DANIEL M. ISARD
I have a very dear friend whose mother was dying. Not understanding what I did for a living, but knowing it was in the funeral profession, she called me to help her plan her mother’s disposition. She wanted her mother’s body to be cremated. We went through the process of planning the funeral service.

Before the cremation I asked, “Mary, who do you want to take possession of your mother’s cremated remains?” She said, “Oh we don’t want them. Just tell the funeral director to do something with them!” I said, “The funeral home can place them in a cemetery for perpetual keeping or give them to you to dispose of as you see fit.”

Many consumers don’t care what happens to the cremated remains of their loved one’s body. There are added decisions they don’t want to deal with. These cremated remains can be converted into diamonds or potting soil but the consumer doesn’t want to make that decision.

One technique that I have found to be successful involves building out the cremation authorization to include the return of the cremated remains. The family is told that they can either pick-up the cremated remains from the funeral home or the funeral home can deliver the cremated remains to the appointed family member. The key points are the date range for the retrieval.

OFFERING GUIDANCE ON CREMATION OPTIONS BY MARK ZIMMER
We acquired firm a few years ago, and during our due diligence, discovered a cupboard containing 16 cremated remains that were unclaimed. They had two crypts at a local cemetery into which the unclaimed urns were entombed, reopened as needed to add others. While this is an effective way of placing unclaimed urns in an accessible place, it is costly and in my opinion, not an option one wishes to exercise!

We have all read the professional journal articles suggesting that the funeral director needs to offer guidance to families. I agree and feel it is imperative to discuss what the family’s decision on final placement of the cremated remains will be at the arrangement conference. In the arrangement conference I have heard such remarks as, “don’t you get rid of them?” and “I never thought of that!”

Winter time in Wisconsin can be brutal. Frost can go as deep as 5 feet, with 25 inches of snow on the surface. Families who desire a service in January many times wish to postpone any committal or military honors until spring. They also feel uncomfortable about keeping their loved ones cremated remains at home.
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It occurred to me some time ago that we needed to create an option for those at-need families who were not sure of what to do with the cremated remains. Our firm developed an “Urn Repository” which holds cremated remains on agreement with the family regarding final placement, how long the urn will remain at our firm, and how we will contact the family regarding a service at a later date. We then track aging, just like receivables, and send reminders as well as phone calls. It is a system that has proven effective!

In the face of continued growth in cremation, CANA applies more than 100 years of experience to help funeral homes, cemeteries, and crematories seize this opportunity to build their businesses by nimbly shifting to a customer-centric approach. Simply stated, service does not begin when you get a call and it does not end when we return the cremated remains to the family. By incorporating some simple touches and tools, you can create a more personal relationship with your families in the aftercare process.

1. Good Old Fashioned Correspondence, like a hand-written note.
2. Create Engaging Events for your clients to attend such as an art/paint night party or host a mystery author/book event.
3. Build your Brand by Dividing and Conquering – by training your team members to be extensions of your business.

With thanks to Kitty Alexander, Community Outreach & Marketing Manager for Foundation Partners Group, for her invaluable insight.

Members can read more techniques in Vol. 53, No. 1 Issue of The Cremationist and make use of our new PR Toolkit for planning your community outreach strategies.
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Not a member? Consider joining your business to access tools, techniques, statistics, and advice from the only association who focuses exclusively on cremation families – only $470!