The Value of Funeral Service
There are many values to funeral service. It helps families bury their loved one and assist in the grieving process. Seeing the body makes the death real. Planning the service helps the family, neighbors, and friends join together in the celebration of a person’s life. Many family members see each other only at funerals and weddings. It is a big family event.
To help the family with its loss, the professional funeral director coordinates the visitation, memory cards, photo board, clergy, cemetery, casket choice embalming, and body presentation. Just as families have family doctors to handle medical problems, they can have a family funeral director to help bury their loved ones and assist in their grief.
Before people were as mobile as they are now, they lived in one town, attended the same church as their parents, and were buried by the neighborhood funeral director. According to the US Census, www.census.gov, 15% of Americans move each year. Now many family members have never attended a funeral and do not know what to expect. The funeral director will guide the family through the steps that make a funeral memorable, personal, and properly disposes of the body.
The world constantly changes. Funeral service will change as the type of family economic situation change.
At one time many homes owned a Hammond Organ. It was a piece of beauty and function. Now you could not give a Hammond Organ away. Homes are smaller and fewer people play the organ, but many enjoy keyboard. The Yamaha keyboard is lighter weight, inexpensive, has numerous sounds, can be recorded, volume can be adjusted, and it can be easily transported. Funeral service can avoid becoming a Hammond Organ or dinosaur by offering new products and services.
I see funeral service becoming more specialized. Just as medicine has specialists, I can see specialists in mortuary science. Mr. Walker might be one known for restorative work, and he will work on accident victims go there. One might handle very rich families. Walker Funeral Home is known for it sensitive care and treatment of young people. There is a funeral home that caters to Hispanics and one for the Jewish Community. In the future, there might be board certifications for funeral home specialties.
Funeral service will undertake integrated marketing, and not write just yellow page ads and display front lawn signage. Each funeral home must have distinctive colors, letters, tone, and style reflected in Web sites, blogs, hearse letters, radio and television ads, magazine ads, and billboards. Ads need to be elegant and eye-catching just the way ads are for insurance companies and retirement products. Funeral service spend as much time marketing as in accounting.
Marketing solves a problem. If you are thirsty, Coke will provide refreshing drinks. If you want a truck, “Have you driven a Ford Lately?” Since all of us will die, we need to solve the problem as what to do to prepare us and/ or our families for death. We can tastefully market funeral service. Families need to talk to the local funeral director and make decisions about burial and funeral service. It helps educate the family.
As the economy changes we need to offer cremations, quality services at an affordable price, and encourage the families to personalize even an inexpensive funeral. Since people are mobile, they might not have a family cemetery or community cemetery. Older family members might consider prearrangements so that the funeral will be funded and preliminary decisions made like type of casket and cemetery space. Some will want cremation to carry the loved ones in an urn until they stay in one location.
Funeral Service must be flexible to serve rich and poor, young and old, stable and itinerant, and all types. Change is part of life, and we must embrace the changes to provide meaningful services to the bereaved.
From:Diane – Emerging Media and Medicine http://diane10.wordpress.com