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Service is transactional and ends when the services end. Serving doesn't. Same hats, different reason for wearing them — and one exercise that shows you what every family is actually after underneath what they asked for.
Map every interaction a family has with your firm across all three phases, and test each one against a single question: peace, or stress? There is no neutral touchpoint. Ends with your own map, built and printable.
"Call me back if you have any questions" isn't follow-up. It just sounds like it. Learn what separates a real next step from a polite goodbye, then write one for every kind of call you take.
Grief nobody validates is still grief. Maryglenn Warnock covers why pet loss gets dismissed as "just a pet," why owners apologize for their own heartbreak, and the four levels of the human-animal bond that tell you who you're actually serving.
Three sessions on the life of an inbound call: the mindset before it rings, why 45% of callers leave as a maybe, and the follow-up that only 26% of calls ever offer. Pat Downey and Nicki Wiedeman on the small links that make the chain strong.
"Let me plan your funeral." Brittany Neunuebel on building a personal brand and a referral network, as a self-described huge introvert who became her team's networking queen. Includes the follow-up habit that beats everything else.
Customer service is pressing one for this and two for that. Customer experience is something else entirely. Learn what separates them, why this profession is built for it, and the six pillars every good experience rests on.
How do you want someone to feel when you pick up? Ten basics cover it: the greeting, holds and transfers, names, taking responsibility, tone, and the goodbye. Ends with a real call you score against all ten.
In this module, Jill Lazar shares effective strategies for building referral networks in the funeral industry. You will learn how to identify and leverage key moments to create referral opportunities and establish mutually beneficial relationships.
Guest CXpert Brittany Neunuebel shares strategies for implementing a continuing care program that will make a meaningful impact in communities, ensure families feel supported throughout their grief journeys, and ultimately grow your business.
Mandie Hungarland's daughter died on a Monday morning. The first funeral home she called got it wrong. The second earned four services in a year. Fourteen lessons on empathy as a skill: four cues, four mistakes, and how to practice.
Empathy isn't a feeling — it's a skill. Learn the four cues hiding in every call a family makes to your firm: circumstance, undertone, expression, and space. Then take a live call and find out which ones you're already missing.
70% of families intend to pre-plan. Almost none do it today. Pat Downey's 7-step PrePlan Formula covers finding the right families to talk to, then the conversation that turns agreement into a commitment. Two sessions, PRE and PLAN.
Real client stories from pre-planning director Jamie Sarche — Fran's change of heart on cremation, the veteran discount, the cold-comforter call. Learn to educate families through pre-need conversations, not sell to them.
Vince Roberge breaks down what actually drives a family's experience — the peak-end rule, real reasons they chose you, and how to map every touch point. Practical customer experience training built specifically for funeral service.
You're the first voice a family hears. This is the script — the greeting, the condolence, the three names, the hold, the handoff — line by line. Then you write your own version and say it out loud.
Jill Lazar from Ring Ring Marketing provides a structured approach to initiating funeral arrangement conversations, focusing on empathy, clarity, and client comfort.
"What if I get halfway through and start crying?" Marc Markell on ten practical ways to welcome children into a funeral home, and why giving a child a real backup plan is exactly what gives them the courage to try without it.
How to include people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the funeral process. Marc Markell on language that helps, condolences that confuse, five things to remember, and real options for the situations that look impossible.
Nine reasons pet loss cuts so deep, and six concrete things to say to someone living it. Maryglenn Warnock covers the uncomplicated bond, euthanasia guilt, and the question she opens with: where did your love story begin?
You don't have to become someone else to be great at sales, just more of your true self. Sammy Villanueva on trust as the sale before the sale, researching like a doctor rather than a psychic, and why great service makes closing unnecessary.
How you show up matters. Learn how nonverbal communication and professional presence impact how families perceive you—especially during their most vulnerable moments.
Families arrive in shock, not ready to grieve. Heather Welborn brings trauma intervention training into the arrangement room with five practical skills: reach out, validate, protect, organize, and help them find a source of strength. Yours included.
Half of all calls never ask for a name. Personalization is the first of KPMG Nunwood's Six Pillars — and on the phone it comes down to five names: yours, the caller's, the person who died, and whoever else is in the room.
Professor Marc Markell teaches funeral professionals how to support suicide loss survivors — the language to use, why it happens, and how to listen without judgment. Grounded, respectful training for one of the hardest conversations you'll have.
Families don't need a pitch, they need a guide. Michelle Carrillo on the small language shifts that help two more families out of every 10 say yes, why a flat no is usually uncertainty, and how to close without losing your steady tone.
We do funerals every day. The families we serve do not. Vince Roberge on building service standards for the first phone call, spotting the defects that undercut them, and the above-and-beyond practices your team already has ideas about.
Three real funeral home calls, and your job is to judge them. Score each on tone, name use, the price question, and the next step — then compare your read against ours. Built as a team discussion starter, not a pop quiz.
Forty percent of callers say they'd confidently choose you. Forty-five say maybe. Integrity is the second of KPMG Nunwood's Six Pillars: doing what you say you'll do, and being clear enough that a family can hold you to it.
Service is transactional and ends when the services end. Serving doesn't. Same hats, different reason for wearing them — and one exercise that shows you what every family is actually after underneath what they asked for.
Nobody in this work is always positive. Brittany Neunuebel on remembering the mission when a case overwhelms you, actually turning the phone off, knowing your limit well enough to say it out loud, and finding something that's just yours.
You were never the loud one, so nobody ever put you down for the promotion. Leadership isn't a personality — it's a gifting. Find yours, then find the one on your team that nobody has named yet.
Empathy, gratitude, ownership. They spell EGO, which is precisely what good service requires you to get rid of. Learn what all three sound like on a real call, then handle one twice — once as an employee, once as an owner.
You held space. You gave comfort. You translated chaos into calm. Tiffany Gallarzo on carrying the weight of this work without absorbing it, with three tools you can use between calls and permission to be good enough.
Jamie Sarche never pitches at her speaking events, and it built her whole practice. Five steps to prepare, the logistics nobody warns you about, and what happened when she went blank on a TED stage. Nobody noticed.
A practical, step-by-step walkthrough of auditing your cemetery's records — from building a master spreadsheet to cross-checking for ghost burials to standardizing your data into something accurate and usable.
Is a better customer experience actually worth the effort? Follow the money: retention, reputation, efficiency, revenue, and heritage families who stay with a firm for generations. Then design the one call that starts it.
Done well, a contest builds a buzz you can feel. Done badly, it tells most of your team not to bother. Pat Downey covers the build checklist, individual and team contests that work, near-free prize ideas, and the two setups to never run.
One thing can make a team member up to three times more productive, and most managers don't do it well. Pat Downey on running the weekly one-on-one: how to introduce it, the four parts inside it, and how to end it so it isn't just a nice visit.
There's no one right way to do social media, and a funeral home's approach won't look like a coffee shop's. Savannah Evanoff on knowing your audience, finding your platform, posting what you can sustain, and why engagement has to be given first.
Thirty-three minutes to return a widow's call, and the family had already gone elsewhere. Craig Meehan on what's really in your call volume, eight questions to ask any answering service before signing, and why families call around.
"If it's truly free, then it's junk." Survey data from 1,100 funeral homes on the three ways tribute videos get sold, what they cost by region, and why packaging into something a family couldn't make themselves outperforms both alternatives.
Turnover, burnout, falling satisfaction, flat revenue — one problem underneath all four. People development is a growth strategy, not an HR initiative. Learn the four steps, then build a 90-day plan for your own team.
You have about five seconds, and most visitors came for an obituary. Landon Bickley on what shoppers, planners, mourners and browsers each need to see, plus the single form change Tukios has seen double or triple leads. Includes a live walkthrough.
Get the public into your funeral home with no funeral to attend. Gail Rubin covers hosting a death cafe, the ground rules, promoting it locally, and the four themes attendees raise every time, with no selling allowed at any point.
A pet owner has an animal. A pet parent has a family member. Coleen Ellis on ten ways to serve the second group, from a full build-out to something you could start this week, plus why pet trusts averaging $20–25K are a pre-need conversation.
85% of families would consider green burial, and 85% would come to a funeral home to plan it. Darren Crouch opens the Green series with independent survey data on what today's families want, and why spending less doesn't mean loving less.