Article 1

As a review of what has been happening and what might happen in the funeral profession, I reviewed several professional trade magazines from the last year. Looking at national magazines and some association publications gave an interesting collection of thoughts and trends.

Many of the magazines regularly look at the standard issues of financial advice, recommendations of companies or services to use and some interesting happenings of the past or present. But what were the topics that showed up in the majority of the magazines? Are these the issues that funeral directors and embalmers are really concerned about?

One topic that surfaced several times was the obesity issue. Are we prepared to deal with the many facets of dealing with the obese client? We not only need to consider all the funeral equipment that might not be large enough, we also have to be concerned about our personnel having to handle a larger than normal person. Will our regular equipment or facility be able to accommodate the size, weight or other factors? Personally, our older facility has had difficulty with doors to allow the larger caskets to be brought into our funeral home without taking off the door frame. Based on the statistics that are given daily, this is something we are dealing with now and will be handling in the future.

Another matter that has become hot is the whole “green burial.” There are the people that are becoming more environmentally concerned and therefore they request going “green” in all that they do. The considerations with this type of service range from embalming or not, type of burial container if any, where you would be allowed to bury in this manner, and many other factors related to this environmentally-friendly burial. Even though the people may consider this a more “economically-friendly” situation, that may not really end up being the case until it becomes more common.

The hot topic of preneed still presents itself on a daily basis. Depending on what company has taken advantage of consumers and the funeral homes more legislative issues have resulted in some states. The funeral homes are favorable about keeping the preneed companies from absconding their funds, but the resultant regulations are quite challenging to adapt to. Hopefully the solutions will work to everyone’s advantage.

Cremation is another factor that is continually discussed. The profitability to the funeral homes has been impacted by the past decisions on what the funeral home was charging when it happened infrequently. Now that it is a large factor to deal with and funeral homes need to address the costs for the appropriate services needed for a cremation. Of course, since some people have not dealt with this type of disposition properly, regulation will probably change and with that the economics will too. Funeral homes need to reasonably price and offer many alternatives to families wanting to cremate their loved ones since this preference is becoming more popular.

Finally the topic of discussion that got my attention in several issues of the magazines was that of the honor and privilege that we have to serve our customers. Several instances of the “funeral they would always remember” were mentioned. It made you proud to be among their company. This area of caring for our customers includes the grief support that we try to provide for our clients too.

One area of concern that was mentioned was that our job wasn’t the greatest and the families are feeling the need for “home funerals.” This may be something to be attentive to though some state requirements may not make this a viable alternative even if the individuals want to handle everything themselves. Truthfully, we need to treat each person we serve as if it were our own family and treat them accordingly. When we forget it’s a person we are dealing with that’s when the families don’t think much of our service.

Inspirational quotes were given in one magazine and one seemed to be the thought to end the quick review and look to the future with:

“The service we render others is the rent we pay for our room on earth.” Wilfred Grenfill

ADVERTISERS

Directory

Classified

Aaron Beasley Embalming Service & Crematory

American Crematory Equipment Co.

American Macular Degeneration Foundation

ASD, Inc.

Baxter Vault Company

Brian Simmons Springfield Mortuary Service

CFL Pre-need