Respectance.com

One Response

1. Comment by Timothy Totten at 3:04 am, June 13th, 2008

   Richard:

   Thank you for your kind words on my blog. I’m glad you can see the funeral industry’s side on this issue. As usual, consumers will drive the online memorial market and will do a better job than funeral directors can.

   But while you admonish directors for their unwillingness to embrace the global aspects of this issue, it’s important to remember that the funeral industry, at least the nuts-and-bolts part of preparing and burying/cremating the dead, is very much a local industry. And the majority of funeral homes in this country still deal directly with customers who have known them for years and chosen them based upon a personal relationship. For that reason, the industry is still very “small town” and will remain so for a long time.
   Yes, there is a part of our future that includes living much of life online, but many smaller sized funeral homes are not even on the Internet (either having a website or even having high-speed access!) and don’t see a need for it.
   In truth, sites like yours provide a very important service to those who have chosen to make the Internet a part of their everyday life: you provide the opportunity to share the information and emotions of loss with others who are similarly connected to the Internet.
   But your love of the Internet and the amount of time you spend on it cannot simply be transferred, like downloading an iTune, to someone who doesn’t “get it” yet.
   There ARE still people who get the newspaper. Even many Internet-savvy folks in my neighborhood get the digital version of their local paper and peruse the obituaries.
   I think one of the biggest issues of Internet connectivity, at least for this industry, is keeping it local. How do we use the Internet to augment our local connections? How do we use our websites and online obituaries to connect, as funeral homes, to our community?
   I still sense a tone of anger at capitalist funeral directors who expect to make a profit from their work.
   Fortunately, I know that money paid for services represents the value a family sees in the time, effort and skill expended on their behalf. On average, a funeral director spends several years in school and apprenticeship, only to emerge into a profession that pays less than $50,000 a year to work long hours (many, many 2 am trips to the hospital and countless more evenings spent at the funeral home for viewings after long days in the office) and miss major family events.
   And if a funeral director is fortunate enough to build up savings and open her own firm, there’s even more responsibility and expenses before any real cash starts flowing.
   The business model for a funeral home (and any service business, for that matter) requires a certain amount of work to be done for each dollar made. Internet companies are able to attract large amounts of investment capital because webservices require a lot less management after an intensive initial setup.
   The sad truth for new services like yours is that most funeral directors know how to do their job and they know what pays the bills. They know that overhead stays the same no matter whether they provide 20 funerals a month or 2 a year. Because there’s such a big risk involved in negatively affecting the stream of funerals coming in, most directors are slow to change their formulas for success.
   Haranguing a funeral director for being “intractable” or warning them that they’ll be “left behind” does not help and will usually, at least among the “old guard” funeral directors I know, elicit a laugh and a dismissing wave of the hand. After that, you get ignored.
   I admire the service you provide for your clientele. But relying upon funeral directors to spread the word about your service, when there’s no real return on the expenditure of their time, strikes me as foolhardy.
   Keep up the good work. Your service is necessary (evidenced by the number of people who already use it) and beautifully designed.