Year-end scrambling or planning?

The end of 2013 is quickly approaching and in the funeral industry, the business of serving families continues it’s evolution.  2013 presented challenges to funeral service providers; families struggling to make choices due to their personal finances, pressure from suppliers with price increases, the ongoing shift of consumer behaviors toward funerals, and of course competition from both local funeral and online companies.

At our funeral home http://www.familychoicefunerals.com we have been blessed in 2013 with substantial call volume and revenue growth over 2012.  Last year’s strategies of director training, pricing, marketing, consumer/caregiver education, website and family experience enhancements have paid off.  Currently, strategy sessions are taking place to meet the needs of the changing consumer, training our directors to meet the needs of families in line with our goals, growing market share in current areas of operation and development of new locations with other funeral home operating partnerships.

Consumer research conducted in 2013 with actual at need families in funeral homes provide invaluable information and consumer acceptance/need measurement.  Even more important, the new services and products will enable funeral directors to offer their families services and products that fill current gaps in our marketplace.  Social media marketing, messaging to funeral homes/consumers, process of presentation to both funeral homes/consumers, funeral home revenue enhancement, and customer service benchmarks are just some of the planning elements necessary for our collective success in 2014.

As Dwight D. Eisenhower said “plans are nothing; planning is everything.”  As 2013 comes to a close, is your firm scrambling or planning for success in 2014?