The other day, a person came to discuss funeral options. After an unpleasant experience last year when her brother passed away, she didn’t want to go through that again and was investigating other options. So, what happened with her?
In brief, it was the usual suspects she experienced.
- The price they told them initially was almost half the final invoice.
- The process felt pressured and confusing.
- The small funeral service at the crematorium felt rushed with a 15-minute cut-off.
Unfortunately this isn’t an uncommon experience
Where SDF is different
- There are never any huge unseen expenses with the final invoice. We are intentionally setup so we don’t need to charge more.
- Our process is the easiest for families to manage. People feel a lot less pressure.
- The relaxed approach. For example, if a service goes a little longer than planned, I’m not bothered.
However, there was that time I had two services at the crematorium only an hour apart. After the first one concluded, the people were chatting outside, and I said bye to them because I had to go. When I returned, they were still there chatting, and I had another group arriving soon. So I just told them that another family was coming, and they were happy enough to move along. No dramas, no pressure. Just me a little surprised to see them still there when I returned.
Another time after someone heard what I did, she asked if she could ask some questions about funerals. So we had a quick chat about funerals and her experiences. She commented that many people don’t really like talking about death or funerals, even though it is a very common reality.
This was the same experience for another person a few days later who popped in SDF with a few questions. Some of the things discussed were: Is embalming essential? She experienced a funeral home, not in Nelson, embalmed a person without asking the family first. She thought that embalming had to be done, especially with a Maori funeral at the marae.
None of these people I spoke with needed a funeral at the time. They just had some questions and it was good to clear up some disinformation about funerals. Because of the recent history of funeral homes taking over most aspects of funerals, it has given them a strong foothold because families don’t really know what to do, so they tend to go with what the funeral director suggests.
So I enjoy empowering families to learn more and have more options. I enjoy them making decisions that are based on what they want – not what they are told they should do. And because I don’t really like the pressure of money/costs, I really like not having the need to try and increase their costs to cover my overheads or meet my profit targets. The more we can make death a natural part of life isn’t a bad thing. I think it is a very good path.
