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Funeral Aftercare Is Changing: Domanicare Is the Reason
Chad Zollinger • May 09, 2019
The funeral profession is changing quickly and Domanicare is leading the charge in funeral aftercare technology.
Funeral homes must contend with two seemingly opposing realities: 1) that at-need is priority #1 and 2) that integrating tech into funeral business operations
is becoming a necessity because of increased competition in the funeral profession.
The truth is that integrating tech in funeral aftercare doesn’t have to take away from your focus on at-need — this is why we built Domanicare.
“Since making the decision to add Domanicare to our aftercare programs, we eliminated the need for any other program.”
—Scott Glover, Alsip & Persons Funeral Chapel
At-need will always remain as the most important service a funeral home can offer; that’s not going to change anytime soon.
As more funeral options become available, competition is increasing rapidly. This has led the funeral profession to rely on tech to differentiate funeral homes.
Domanicare is a funeral tech and service that doesn’t steal your time or focus from at-need.
It is funeral aftercare that wins brand champions, leads customers back through your sales funnel, and ultimately aids your at-need capabilities.
This article will show how funeral aftercare is changing and why Domanicare is the only quality aftercare service for the digital age.
How Domanicare Is Changing the Funeral Aftercare Profession
Domanicare is comprised of four vital funeral aftercare services:
- Aftercare Text Messaging
- Review Generation
- Domani for Grief (Online Grief Support)
- Appointment Setting
Funeral home aftercare services are usually segmented or separate from at-need and preneed services.
Until recently, funeral services have been separated into three distinct silos: at-need marketing, preneed, and aftercare.
Most other industries experience a breaking down of silos
within a business once tech makes its appearance in the industry or profession.
After all, one of the main advantages of adding tech to your business plan is the increased fluidity between your different services (death tech is no exception).
We’ll show you exactly how Domanicare breaks down silos, creates fluidity between different funeral home services, and ultimately leads to increased at-need revenue.
Aftercare Text Messaging
Funeral directors work hard to create funeral services that help families grieve in a healthy way.
Healing is a vital part of the funeral profession. As funeral homes become more involved in the healing process with families, brand loyalty skyrockets.
In short, aftercare increases brand loyalty. There’s just one problem...
Response rates to the traditional forms of communication (mailers, email, and phone calls) are alarmingly low.
This leads us to a very important question: how can you help your aftercare families if you can only communicate with less than 15% of them?
Domanicare’s text messaging service
has a 98% read rate and 48.22% response rate.
Most respond within an hour of receiving the message — these are numbers previously unseen in the aftercare industry.
By integrating text messaging in your funeral aftercare program, you will open the floodgates to more customer reviews, preneed leads, and insights that will help you improve your at-need services.
Review Generation
As you increase the number of aftercare families and individuals you are able to communicate with, you will be blown away by the positive responses from your families.
“...families rant and rave over the communication and follow-up they receive.”
—Scott Glover, Alsip & Persons Funeral Chapel
Time and time again, our text responders find families are incredibly grateful for the respectful way that funeral directors have arranged their funeral services.
In response to our reaching out via text message, one customer didn’t think a “thank you” through text message was enough. She actually wrote and sent a handwritten note to our funeral home partner:
It reads:
“Thank you so much for reaching out to me. I am doing fine — my motto is “Be happy and stay busy.” In two weeks I’ll be flying out [name] to the family plot in Indiana — next to his mom — which he always requested. You folks have been so loving and caring and it was highly appreciated. And I’m sorry it took me so long to thank you!”
We identify these satisfied customers as brand champions — they are easy to find and more than happy to refer your funeral home and leave exceptional reviews.
Once we’ve identified a brand champion, we respectfully invite the individual to leave a review for your funeral home.
Because we only request reviews from brand champions, the number of five-star reviews is extremely high.
In fact, over 90% of the total reviews we’ve generated have been five-star reviews.
Additionally, Domanicare increases the average number of reviews for a funeral home by 101%.
Domani for Grief (Online Grief Support)
There are 13 million grievers due to death annually in the United States alone (Pasadena City College).
As we said before, the more you aid in your families’ healing process, the greater their brand loyalty will become.
The Domani Group CEO, Jon Lefrandt, is a grief survivor. Having lost his father 10 years ago, Jon had to grapple with debilitating grief that lasted more than five years.
Eventually, Jon found the grief support he needed and overcame the grief that had remained and hurt him so deeply.
Once Jon entered the aftercare profession, his experience left him with one question:
Why aren't funeral aftercare and professional grief support combined?
That’s why we created Domani for Grief
as an integral part of Domanicare. As our text responders have conversations with funeral aftercare families, they come across those who may benefit from online, individualized grief support.
We present Domani for Grief to these individuals on behalf of your funeral home, helping your families overcome grief and winning you even more brand champions along the way.
Domani for Grief includes the following services to funeral home families:
- 24/7 Grief Coaching
- Dozens of Free Online Grief Courses
- Specialized, Domani-Certified Grief Therapists
- Grief Articles and Resources
Appointment Setting
Through Domanicare Text Messaging, Review Generation, and Domani for Grief, your at-need services benefit from a greater online reputation, a more robust offering to at-need families, and brand champions who become returning customers and referrers of your funeral home.
But how does Domanicare boost preneed sales?
Every aftercare family has recently had one of two possible experiences:
- Either they planned the funeral beforehand (preplanning) or,
- They paid for and planned the funeral following their loved one’s death.
Those who’ve just experienced a loss and preplanned the funeral see the value of preplanning — these customers are preneed prospects.
Those who did not preplan had to endure the emotional and financial stress of at-need services, no matter how helpful the care of the funeral directors. Such customers will also easily see the benefit of setting a preneed appointment.
Domanicare provides appointment setting services
to funeral homes who’d like to see a significant boost to their preneed programs.
Funeral Aftercare Problems and Domanicare’s Solutions
Domanicare was created in an effort to tackle some common problems in the funeral profession.
Almost every funeral home owner who partners with Domanicare notes the overwhelmingly positive reaction from their families — that’s because we’ve identified and remedied the right problems.
With Domanicare, funeral directors no longer have to come up with made-from-scratch funeral home aftercare ideas.
Our team of trained text responders will continue the lasting, meaningful relationships you’ve already nurtured through quality at-need services.
“Domanicare provides the gift of aftercare coupled with continuing relationships that I have dreamed about for years…”
— Ginny Sanzo, Bedle Funeral Home
Your Domanicare program will boost your preneed effectiveness, at-need growth, review generation, and brand loyalty.
You will outshine your competition online
and in-person through meaningful dialogue in aftercare messaging.
Domanicare Is Leading the Charge for Innovative Funeral Aftercare
Funeral homes across the nation are noticing the difference that Domanicare makes. That’s because we understand that aftercare is meant to be a driving force for good in the lives of the families you serve.
In the first month of the Domani site being live, we saw almost complete nationwide traffic.
Domanicare also won the ICCFA's Best in Personalization KIP Award for 2018. The Best in Personalization award recognizes "outstanding examples of personalization of services or products in the death care profession."
Additionally, our funeral home partners are blown away by the impact that Domanicare has had on their aftercare programs.
We take pride in the habit we’ve formed to exceed client expectations.
Here at Domani, we understand that our growth is in large part due to the wonderful and outstanding services that our funeral home partners provide.
After all, without quality at-need services, aftercare is ineffective. Because of the excellent support from our partners, Domanicare is changing aftercare forever.
And we’ve got news for the funeral aftercare industry: we’re just getting started.
Funeral Home Articles
If there's one thing we've learned in 2020, it's that it's difficult to predict the future, and there will all be surprises that lie ahead. Businesses and individuals need to stay agile and adaptable to be ready for whatever life throws at them. 2020 has been a challenging year for the funeral profession and others as well. Still, we've seen that those funeral homes and funeral professionals who have focused on making their consumer experience as comforting and easy as possible are those that are winning. At Domani, we exist to help funeral homes help their families have a better experience. Through the power of text messaging, we follow up with families and give them the support and resources they need following a loss. That great experience then leads to a positive online review and helps others looking for a positive experience to find that funeral home. It's a virtuous cycle that helps grow a funeral home's at-need business. When it comes to preneed, the same principle holds. If funeral homes can provide the experience a family is looking for, that will be the funeral home that wins. During 2020, our preneed appointment setting team has found great success in scheduling remote appointments. Funeral homes that have been willing to adapt and find new ways to do business have grown even during difficult circumstances. We firmly believe that technology will help us as a funeral profession provide those better experiences for families, but simply using technology for technology's sake is not the answer. We need to leverage technology to help provide personal, engaging experiences with families. We shouldn't use technology as a crutch or an excuse. It's another way to help the ones we serve and provide them the support they need during a difficult time. As we approach the end of the year and look forward to 2020, take some time to think about how your funeral home is providing meaningful experiences for families and how/what you can do to improve that in the coming year. If you're interested in learning more about Domanicare or Domani Appoinment Setting, please schedule a demo by clicking the link below.
By far the most effective way to create a sense of loyalty to your funeral home is to perform an exceptional service for that family. However, there’s more that you can be doing to establish credibility with families. Here’s three easy steps on how to develop loyalty to your company and ensure your customers come back for your services when a loved one passes.
The vast majority of people in the US and Canada use smartphones. Almost everyone has a smartphone nowadays. Remember when the first “smartphone” came out in 1992 and cell phones like the BlackBerry and iPhone were considered luxuries when they were first created? Now it’s a common sight to see an iPhone. Most funeral homes and cemeteries haven’t even scratched the surface of text-based aftercare, but with 80% of the U.S. population owning a smartphone, and that number expected to rapidly grow.