Funeral Directors found new ways to raise your funeral cost in 09.
In 2009 the Funeral Industry came up with secret, new improved ways to take your money in 2010. 1)Funeral Webcast 2) new casket sales tricks 3) collectors 4) Social media 5) improved websites 6).paid online obituaries.7). raising the basic service fee.
1. The Number one new way Funeral Directors took your money in 09 was the Funeral Webcast. With Michael Jackson, Walter Cronkite and Teddy Kennedy Funerals the public has accepted and come to expect the Funeral Webcast. Funeral One-is one of the popular places selling this service to Funeral Homes. The Funeral home often charges too much for the webcast. Video the funeral yourself. Replay it on the web, e mail it yourself or mailed burned dvds to friends and relatives-Save your money
2. Things improved dramatically in profit taking in in casket sales through a secret Batesville Casket(#1 Casket provider to Funeral Homes) discount. If a Funeral Home guaranteed Batesville a certain number of casket sales a year, that funeral home could receive a 20% discount on from Batesville. The discount in most cases was not passed on to the Consumer.
3. Funeral Bill Collectors came into their own in 2009. There are many folks helping funeral homes collect money The fees charged to these folks raise your Funeral Prices. One company that made out big time in this area in 2009 is American Funeral Financial LLC, which also makes loans to Funeral Directors.
4. Social Media has allowed the funeral home to dip in to your pocket. Twitter and Facebook(Fans) are not just for friends but for businesses as well. Funeral Homes use these services to connect with the elderly and get them to come in to prepay or purchase a preneed funeral plan. Guarranteed Preneed plans happen to be dead and outdated.
Preneed was also fraught with Scandal in 2009. Avoid Social media and the funeral home . It will not help you with your funeral cost.
5. In 2009 Many Funeral homes improved their websites saying they provide better service. It is also a quick way to gather information and get folks in the door so the funeral director can plan their profit taking! Many of these new website offer preneed sign up which allows the home to to tailor a preneed contract to you so they can take your money.” Robin H……” a consultant to the funeral l industry is actively helping funeral directors pull this off. Funeral One provides websites to Funeral Home as well.
Plan your funeral at a free funeral planning site like thefuneralsite.com rather than a funeral home website.
6. Funeral Homes continued working with paid on line obituary sites like Tribute.Com, Legacy.com when free comprehensive obituary sites like Otrib.com are available. Use a free site for your loved ones obituary. Or you can simply set up a blog for that purpose. Best – Simply use facebook for an online memorial.
7 Some Funerals are embracing third party caskets and raising their basic service fee. They may appear to lowering the costs for you but in doing that they raise the costs of their basic service fee. The Federal Trade Commission has ruled this year that the consumer can negotiate a lower cost funeral on alternative funerals. Connecting Directors.com is advocating, promoting, raising your funeral cost through accepting third party caskets, while rasing the Basic Service Fee.
This is all a reaction to Walmart selling caskets online which is a good thing for the funeral consumer.
If you negotiate your way around the top seven ways funeral directors raised your funeral cost in 2009 you can come in under the average cost of a funeral in 2010.
Funeral Industry|Funeral blog by Your Funeral Guy
Be sure to Check Out the Top 100 Funeral News Stories of 2009.
Update:
Connecting Directors Posted a blog response to this post
Your Funeral guy posted a blog reply to Connecting Directors.
Tags: "funeral cost", average cost of a funeral, basic service fee, casket, connectingdirectors.com, funeral, funeral home, funeral industry, funeral webcast, obituary, preneed, www.TheFuneralSite.com
