How a telephone answering service can work for your funeral home

When someone dies, it’s a difficult and upsetting time for family members, and sorting out funeral arrangements is at the top of the grieving relatives to-do list. This can cause problems if the death occurs during the holiday season, outside of office hours, or if you are abroad in a different time zone at the time. That’s why it’s vital that your funeral home is able to provide a rapid and sensitive response to enquiries any day, any time, all year round.

One way of achieving this is through using a telephone answering service. A dedicated, highly trained live answering service can offer many other benefits to your funeral home business.

Helping grieving relatives

Live operators can be specially trained to deal with caller enquiries sympathetically and sensitively. It’s also possible for them to ask specific questions to which they can give helpful answers and offer guidance. For example, bereaved family members can be talked through the process of how to plan an open casket service or viewing, in addition to receiving guidance on the types of services available and what will happen at the funeral.

24/7 support for other agencies

With a telephone answering service in place, your business will be able to handle calls received from other agencies, including the police, hospice staff, and hospitals. This service can be very helpful, saving your staff the onerous job of going through lots of answerphone messages at the beginning of each working day.

Allowing your staff to concentrate on assisting grieving relatives

An answering service can free-up your staff to concentrate on giving personal support to grieving families and focus on arranging the funeral service, cremation or burial, while the virtual receptionist fields incoming phone calls.

In conclusion

If you run a funeral home, a telephone answering service could be of great benefit in providing support to your clients, to outside agencies, and to your regular staff. Remember to mention that you provide a 24/7, 365 service in your promotional literature and brochures.

For more information on how our outsourced funeral call handling can help you to provide a better service to your clients, why not contact us today.