The Importance of Trust in the Funeral Industry

Mar 14
At the time of writing, the exact details of the Legacy Funerals scandal in Hull in unclear. The police investigation is on-going. 

What is clear is there has been a huge, indeed criminal breech of trust which will shock all the funeral industry in the UK for many years. 

The funeral industry is a conservative one, with most companies being long-standing or council owned. Whether it is collecting and looking after the person who has died, transportation, cremating or burying the deceased, families employ and trust an organisation to treat their loved one with dignity and to do those tasks that they don't want to  do themselves.
Many funeral homes serving their local communities have been in the same family for many generations. Reputation means a lot, as does familiarity and trust.

For the person employed to hold the family's grief at the funeral service, reputation, familiarity and trust is equally as important.

This is why successful funeral celebrants have to learn and work hard at building trust with their own local funeral industry. 

What does this mean for recently trained funeral celebrants? 

Funeral Directors and arrangers arrangers have seen it all.....

Newly trained funeral celebrants appearing at their door, no appointment, casually dressed, and expecting to be given a funeral service booking simply because they have a celebrant training certificate. No...this wont work. 

Instead, to build trust that will guarantee that newly trained funeral celebrants get their first bookings we teach the 5 R's:

  1. Research – branding, pricing, ownership & location
  2. Rank – from “most want to work with” to “not really bothered”
  3. Reflect – be professional, resilient, review & repeat
  4. Record - capture hard & soft data from your visit
  5. Re-visit - schedule regular “passing” visits over time to build trust


Newly trained celebrants who follow our advice and produce a professional & impressive "Celebrant Family Care Plan"; who can talk confidently about their transferable skills and experiences from early work or personal life; who can connect in a personable way with funeral directors & arrangers; who make frequent & regular "passing visits" to "check in" & chat (and don't apply any pressure), will find, in time, they will get bookings.

And doing a good job is important too.

The day after a funeral service, the Funeral Director or arranger will contact the family to see how the service was. The feedback from the family will often depend upon whether there is a subsequent booking with the FD, or not. 

Great feedback from families is not, however just about the delivery of the funeral service. It is also all about:
  • The speed at which you got in contact with the family after being booked;
  • How well you conducted NoK meeting and connected with the bereaved family;
  • How you responded to their requests for personalisation and changes;
  • How you advised them as a funeral service expert;
  • How you greeted them and significant mourners on the day of the funeral service;
  • How you attended to the family after the service.

All these aspects are often not taught or covered at all in many funeral celebrant training courses. And yet they are so important for building trust and reputation. This is important when building your funeral celebrant business. 


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