About Strategic Funeral Resources
Back in the early 90’s, here in Ontario, Canada the cremation rate was roughly 25%, with about 85% of the cremation calls having some type of service component. Fast forward to today, and the cremation rate here in Ontario is 70% – 75% with a 35% – 45% direct cremation, meaning no services.
Why has the consumer changed so radically over the last 30 years and what does it mean for your funeral home business?
Back then, cremation was viewed by funeral homes as an alternative to burial that in most cases included some type of service. Cremation was simply a different method of disposition. Then in the 90’s, came the low cost cremation providers with a focus on grabbing market share by promoting low prices. Over the years since then, the mindset has changed with many local funeral homes. Low cost providers targeted the long established funeral homes and grew in volume and seized market share. To avoid losing calls, traditional funeral homes began promoting low cost cremations. To add to the downward spiral of increasing direct cremation calls with little profitability, we now have a number of software providers who focus on low end cremation, encouraging your consumers to buy their low cost cremation online. This diminishes your years of hard work, building and cultivating family and community relationships to a price only decision by a growing number of consumers.
With a focus on market share at all costs, many funeral homes today are experiencing revenue and profitability losses. Declining revenue, challenges making the weekly payroll, employees wanting a salary increase and threatening to leave to the competition are just the tip of the iceberg. Our clients look to Cremation Experts for help and long term guidance.
As we work with you and your firm, our goal is to help you prepare your business for the future both at need and pre need, using all the tools we have available. We focus on people, services, products, pricing and marketing to help your funeral home be positioned for future success. We see the impact on revenue of both the 85% direct cremation firms and those funeral homes with a 30% cremation rate trying to prepare for the future.
