At this year’s NFDA Convention in New Orleans, ASD Family-Member Owner and CMO, Kevin Czachor, will once again take the stage during the Opening General Session for the Innovation Award ceremony. In his fifth appearance at this event over the last 12 years, Kevin will represent ASD not as a finalist, but as the sponsor of the prestigious Innovation Award. Recently, Kevin shared with the NFDA why ASD chose to support this year’s award, reflecting on the honor of being a four-time recipient from the world’s largest funeral association.
Can you tell me about your company and your role within it?
ASD has created a new class of answering service exclusively for funeral homes. My parents, Barbara and Martin Czachor, founded ASD in 1972 and we have exclusively served the deathcare profession since the mid-90s, remaining family-owned like many of our clients. Today, my brother Marty Czachor Jr and sister Kathy Kelley along with myself manage the day-to-day operations at ASD while our parents enjoy their retirement. With the family-run nature of our business, I have never been very big on titles. My sister, Kathy, brother, Marty, and I wear many hats. We believe that no detail or job is too small.
ASD was a winner of this award in the past. Can you share what winning the award meant to you and your company?
We consider the NFDA Innovation Award to be the pinnacle of success for a funeral service vendor. It is the only award that recognizes the businesses that help funeral homes and the families they serve. For us here at ASD, innovation is such a huge driver with everything we do. We don’t outsource any of our technology – everything is developed in-house by our team. We are always looking ahead with a focus on creating new solutions that can make life easier for funeral professionals. The NFDA Innovation Award has given us the opportunity to rise to this challenge and brainstorm ways we can contribute to progress within the funeral profession. Each time we were recognized, it validated our commitment to innovation and reinforced our dedication to supporting funeral directors and the families they serve. It has also motivated our team to continue pushing the boundaries of what is possible in our profession.
How did winning the award impact your business, both internally and externally?
The NFDA Innovation Awards have helped ASD to remain on the forefront of technological advancements that can improve the lives of our funeral director clients. When ASD was awarded the 2012 NFDA Innovation Award for our smartphone app, ASD Mobile, it was a moment of great pride for our team the award represented the value that funeral directors saw in our company and in our technology. At that moment, we immediately began to brainstorm ways we could evolve in order to take our service to the next level.
We realized then that ASD could offer communication solutions to funeral directors that extend beyond a traditional answering service. With our state-of-the-art technology and experienced team of programmers, we are able to design custom smartphone solutions specifically to address on-call challenges funeral directors have described to us. With this newfound certainty, we began working on a revolutionary new idea that would become our MobileFH™ feature, which gives funeral directors the freedom to call any number and have the funeral home number display as their outgoing Caller ID, keeping their cell phone number private. The benefits of this feature were confirmed by funeral directors nationwide who voted for ASD as the winner of the 2015 NFDA Innovation Award, making our company the first and only funeral service vendor to receive two NFDA Innovation Awards.
Year after year, our company has demonstrated how fully committed we are to seeking out new and inventive ways to resolve communication issues for funeral directors and the NFDA has given us a platform to showcase these solutions. We received the award in 2017 for a potentially life-saving solution we developed that allows us to provide support to callers in crisis who may be considering suicide. Finally, in 2018, two of our solutions were selected as finalists and we received the award, renamed the Members Choice Award that year, for our Web Form Watchdog™ feature which helps funeral homes to be more responsive to urgent web communication.
Winning these awards has solidified our reputation as an innovative leader in the funeral service profession. They have also inspired our team to continuously pursue new technologies that address the evolving needs of funeral directors and their communities.
What motivated you to sponsor this year’s Innovation Award?
As a four-time winner of the Innovation Award, we understand the significance of recognizing creativity and ingenuity—two qualities that are essential for driving progress in the deathcare field. This award celebrates those who push the boundaries of innovation, and we eagerly anticipate the groundbreaking features and solutions that will be selected as finalists this year. We are excited to see how these innovations will shape the future of our profession.
While ASD continues to develop new solutions every year, we wanted to give other companies a chance to shine and demonstrate their own innovative capabilities. Sponsoring this award allows us to support and encourage the creative efforts of our peers, fostering a spirit of collaboration and advancement within the profession. We believe that by highlighting and celebrating these achievements, we can collectively drive deathcare forward, ensuring that we all benefit from the fresh ideas and new technologies that emerge.
How does sponsoring this award align with your company’s values and mission?
ASD is dedicated to fostering innovation and excellence within the funeral profession. By supporting this award, we encourage companies to seek out and implement new ideas, technologies, and processes that can improve the experiences of funeral directors and the families they serve. This sponsorship reflects our belief in the power of recognition to inspire creativity and drive continuous improvement. By celebrating the achievements of our fellow deathcare leaders, we hope to motivate others to pursue excellence and make meaningful contributions to the funeral service community.
How did your experience as a previous winner influence your decision to become a sponsor?
Our experience as a previous winner of the Innovation Award profoundly influenced our decision to become a sponsor, as it gave us firsthand insight into the transformative impact of such recognition. Winning the award not only validated our efforts but also inspired us to continuously develop new solutions that could help funeral directors and the families they serve. By becoming a sponsor, we aim to extend that same sense of encouragement and recognition to other companies, fostering a culture of ingenuity that benefits the entire profession.
What advice would you give to other suppliers who are considering applying for this year’s Innovation Award?
As funeral service suppliers and vendors, we see firsthand how dedicated funeral directors are to giving families the care and attention they need. However, they are pulled in so many different directions and need support to help juggle all the many things they must manage at once. ASD’s technology innovations were born out of discovering a common problem shared by funeral directors and developing a new solution. The key to this is our relationships with our clients, which allow us to understand their unique challenges and create tools that genuinely make a difference in their daily operations.
Our advice to our fellow funeral suppliers would be to ask yourself how your company might be in the best position to resolve a problem for funeral homes or to help funeral directors resolve a problem for families. By closely listening to your clients and understanding their pain points, you can innovate and provide solutions that truly address their needs. Collaboration and feedback from the funeral service community are essential in creating meaningful advancements that enhance the support provided to both funeral directors and the families they serve.
Is there anything else you would like to add about your experience as a former winner or your decision to sponsor this year’s award?
Good luck to all of this year’s award contenders! We are looking forward to sharing the stage with fellow deathcare innovators at the annual convention in October!
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From Award Winner to Sponsor
