Nov 17, 2022
Across the country, funeral home owners are feeling the impact of the current economic climate on their businesses. On top of this, a nationwide shortage of funeral home workers has made it increasingly difficult for funeral homes to find apprentices to help shoulder the burden. As a result, many funeral professionals are actively cutting expenses and seeking more cost-effective options to boost their profitability.
Time and again, ASD has proven to be the solution funeral homes can rely on during lean economic times. For 50 years, our company has been helping funeral homes resolve communication issues and improve their processes. ASD can provide the same telephone services as a 24-hour office receptionist for a fraction of the cost while giving you access to the funeral profession’s most advanced technology tools to help you run your business as efficiently as possible. It’s not about getting more done, it’s about having less to do. Let us help you meet that goal.
5 Ways ASD Can Help Your Funeral Home Run More Efficiently
1. Cost-Effective Staffing Solutions
The call volume at a funeral home may vary greatly from week to week and it can be difficult for owners to determine how many employees are needed to cover the phones. One of the main benefits of using ASD for your funeral home’s calls is that it eliminates the need for overstaffing. The cost of an answering service is minimal compared to the cost of hiring an extra person to monitor calls. This is especially true for firms that have staff working in the funeral home overnight to answer the phones. By utilizing an answering service, especially during busier times, directors can decrease their overhead costs while freeing up employees to complete other tasks. At ASD, our clients have the flexibility to forward their phone lines as often or as little as needed. This gives directors peace of mind knowing they can rely on back up support anytime their staff is unable to answer the phones.
2. Tools to Capture Shopper Calls
Funeral homes that rely solely on the loyalty of families served in the past without making a real effort to connect with shoppers are jeopardizing both the growth of their business and their firm’s reputation. In this economic climate, can you afford to lose even one family? Making a connection with callers shopping around begins at the first point of contact. These callers should be able to receive an immediate answer to their questions. This is why ASD Call Specialists are trained to patch price shoppers directly through to the on-call director, ensuring you are not trying to track down the family after the fact while they are calling other funeral homes.
Our clients can also review shopper calls that are directly patched to their staff, allowing you to listen to the complete recording of the call even after the Call Specialist disconnects. On-call directors can also call any number through the ASD Mobile app and have the call recorded and available for future review. This solution helps funeral home owners and their staff to develop a consistent approach when handling shopper calls. Call recordings can be used as convenient training tools to help funeral home’s establish best practices and capture more business.
3. Efficient Text Messaging Features
Text-messaging has transformed everyday life in a multitude of ways, but perhaps the biggest is the speed and convenience in which we are able to transmit information to one another. The wide usage of text messaging has streamlined many processes and has greatly changed the landscape of how we interact with one another, including how businesses interact with customers. While telephone calls will always play a vital role in the funeral business, text messaging is now widely used by most funeral professionals. This is why ASD has endeavored to create new text-messaging tools specifically to facilitate communication between funeral directors and families as well as help on-call directors save time and gain more freedom on the go.
MobileFH® Texting allows funeral professionals to send and receive text messages using the funeral home’s main business number as the sending number. This innovative mobile tool works by connecting the mortuary’s office number to ASD. MobileFH® Texting ensures families and contacts are using the right phone number when sending sensitive information to the funeral home via text message. It also provides on-call funeral directors more freedom to conduct business on the go without giving out their personal cell phone numbers. Funeral home owners and managers can easily review their staff message exchanges with families as all text messages, photos, and important documents are stored safely within the ASD Mobile app. Learn More
The NEXT STEP Text™ allows funeral homes to offer important resources to families via text message immediately following their first call. The time that occurs between ASD handling a death call and the on-call funeral director returning the call may be a short duration, but a lot can happen in those few minutes. Having the ability to immediately send a text with valuable information to that family while the director is preparing to return their call demonstrates a higher level of customer care not possible through other communication methods. In addition, ASD’s MobileFH Texting® is built into the NEXT STEP Text™ which means the message is sent directly from the funeral home’s main business phone number and any replies from the family to it are logged within the ASD Mobile app for the on-call funeral director. Learn More
4. Burnout Prevention For Your Staff
Building a team of experienced and dedicated employees requires funeral home owners to fully support their staff. One of the simplest ways to earn the loyalty of your employees is to give them the flexibility to conduct business on the go and the down time they need to recharge. Your staff will be more devoted to the funeral home if they do not feel shackled to a physical location and aren’t forced to answer every call after hours. In today’s day and age, people will often call funeral homes at all hours of the day about everything from death certificates to job opportunities. Your employees will eventually grow resentful of having to walk away from their dinner table to answer a call from a solicitor. This type of routine can quickly take its toll on even the most dedicated person.
Instead of requiring your staff to answer every call after hours, forward your lines to ASD so our experienced Call Specialists can effectively screen calls and reach out to your staff when an urgent need is communicated. This will help you retain quality employees and will give your staff more time to rest and be with their families. ASD is the only answering service that offers custom-built technology for the funeral profession. Knowing that funeral homes operate differently, we designed our system with hundreds of adjustable settings. Every client has a designated account with their firm’s contact preferences, instructions and special notations mapped out clearly for our Call Specialists.
5. Flexible Service Options
As the only answering service that exclusively serves funeral homes, ASD understands the funeral profession is inherently unpredictable and your fiscal needs can change unexpectedly. Our company does not require any term contract, meaning you can cancel service anytime penalty free. With ASD, you can also gain access to our pre-screening call solutions that utilize recorded prompts to filter out non-urgent messages, ensuring you are not charged for these calls. We also offer cost-effective plans for firms that only want to utilize our answering service as a backup when they are unable to answer the line. Through your local phone company, you can set your phone to ring a predetermined number of times at the funeral home before diverting the call to ASD. This feature, known as No Answer Call Forwarding, provides you with the flexibility to decide where the call should be answered while protecting your phone lines at all times.
ASD offers every funeral home a 30-Day Free Trial that gives you an
opportunity to full evaluate every aspect of our service. We work closely with
you during the trial to learn about your specific needs and document your
customizable preferences. Let us answer your phones for
ABSOLUTELY NO COST during our trial period to prove to you how ASD’s efficient funeral communication solutions can set you free!
Want to learn more? Contact our National Sales Manager, Craig
Meehan, at 800-868-9950 or email
Craig@myASD.com
Related Reading
6 Things Funeral Directors Lose by Not Using An Answering Service
13 Time-Saving Solutions For Busy Funeral Directors
ASD: Freedom For Your Life, Protection For Your Calls
About The Author
Jess Farren (Fowler)
Jess Farren (Fowler) is a Public Relations Specialist and Staff Writer who has been a part of the ASD team since 2003. Jess manages ASD’s company blog and has been published in several funeral trade magazines. She has written articles on a variety of subjects including communication, business planning, technology, marketing and funeral trends. You can contact Jess directly at Jess@myASD.com
