Jan 21, 2020

On Friday, January 10th, ASD’s FuneralSync™ integration feature reached a significant milestone. The feature, which allows our clients to automatically sync their software and websites to ASD’s systems, was first introduced to the funeral profession 12 years ago this month. The first version of the tool was a somewhat manual process that allowed for transfer of some very basic information. Over time, this feature, now known as FuneralSync™, has evolved to become the most flexible integration tool available to directors.

In 2019, ASD's FuneralSync™ automatically transferred more than 404,314 obituaries, saving our funeral professional clients approximately 21,000 hours of redundant work.

Funeral professionals spend hours every week entering data into their funeral management systems and posting information on their websites. FuneralSync™ was created by ASD to help our clients reclaim the time once spent on these redundant tasks. The feature allows you to automatically transfer funeral service information from your funeral home’s website to ASD. You can also use FuneralSync™ to pull First Call information, including call recordings, from ASD directly into your funeral home’s management program.

Today, thousands of funeral homes nationwide utilize FuneralSync™ to save time, reduce data entry errors and operate more efficiently. Every year, nearly half a million obituaries are automatically transferred over to ASD through FuneralSync™. Each obit represents time ASD has given back to our clients. Rather than having to log into various databases and copy/paste information into multiple fields, the data is automatically synced without any effort. When considering the fact that each obit could take up to 5 minutes to enter, ASD’s FuneralSync™ feature saved our clients 21,000 hours of redundant work in 2019 alone, not to mention the headaches saved by eliminating the chance for errors.

Does this look familiar? ASD can help!

One of ASD’s biggest goals when developing FuneralSync™ was to partner with as many of the funeral profession’s leading software and website companies as possible. We understood that our clients used many different providers and did not wish to set any limits on this timesaving technology. In 2013, ASD released an enhanced version of FuneralSync™ that more easily allowed companies to integrate. This gave ASD clients the freedom to utilize our advanced solution without having to switch providers. The updated version also offers increased flexibility. For example, clients can edit their funeral home’s website obituaries from within the ASD Mobile app and myASD.com website portal.

Below is a list of the different software and website companies that have used the FuneralSync™ API to integrate with ASD. If you are an ASD client and do not have FuneralSync™ enabled, simply contact your provider and ask them to activate it. There is NO COST from ASD to utilize this feature.

ASD Solutions for your Funeral Home’s Website

FuneralSync is a part of ASD’s suite of solutions designed to help funeral directors enhance their website communications. There are many situations where a family member may be hesitant to call a funeral home following a death. To provide an added level of service, you could offer website visitors with a second option for contacting you: a Web Chat button. This lets families visiting your site know that you are always available to assist them and can help you to capture more business opportunities.

With ASD’s Web Chat solution, both an ASD Agent and on-call director to be involved with web chat sessions via a 3-way chat. When a chat is initiated, an ASD Agent immediately responds to the question using information that has been customized by director. If the question is urgent, a notification is automatically sent to the on-call director’s mobile phone alerting them that there is a chat session in progress. This allows you to quickly respond to any urgent incoming chats from your mobile phone or computer.

In 2018, ASD’s introduced our Web Form WatchDog™ feature to help funeral professionals respond more quickly to inquiries that are sent via the funeral home's website. Most funeral home websites have a ‘Contact Us’ form instructing visitors to leave their information and reason for contacting. When a form is submitted, it often is sent to a single, generic email address that is not monitored 24/7. As a result, funeral directors often don’t see them until the following day, if at all, and the family might contact a competitor in the meantime.

ASD's Web Form WatchDog™ helps funeral professionals become more responsive to submitted web forms by allowing ASD to monitor your funeral home’s web inquiries and immediately alert you when an urgent need is communicated. This process decreases the delay in the funeral home’s response and can give firms a competitive advantage. A quick turnaround time conveys to families visiting your site that you are always available to help. ASD’s Web Form WatchDog™ can be added to any existing funeral home website. It was built to complement ASD’s extensive array of web and mobile tools that help funeral homes stay better connected to their communities. In 2018, this feature was recognized with an NFDA Innovation Award.

To learn more about ASD's Website and Answering Service solutions or to take advantage of our 30-Day Free Trial, contact Craig at 800-868-9950 or email Craig@myASD.com.

If you are a current ASD client and would like to learn more or to activate any of ASD’s web-based solutions, contact our Customer Service Department at 800-868-9950 ext. 5 or email Solutions@myASD.com.

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