Why do the best funeral homes offer digital legacy services?

With people having more online accounts and assets than ever, there’s growing urgency in the industry to establish a plan for addressing these accounts when a loved one passes away. Within this movement exists a big opportunity for funeral homes to join the conversation.

The best funeral directors have a long history of keeping pace with changes; from embracing the need to build a website to offering online obituaries, funeral homes provide services that are most needed for families during a crisis. The next phase of this involves adding digital legacy services. In addition to offering another benefit for the families who have chosen to work with your funeral home, you also have the possibility of providing value to those who did not select your company for the funeral services.

Staying adaptable and evaluating the market for opportunities to serve the broad needs of today’s families is key for funeral home directors. Digital legacy services are just one more way to serve your clients while also differentiating yourself from your competition. Taking the lead also establishes funeral homes of choice as those that continually invest and expand in services designed for the modern family.

 

What Are Digital Legacy Services?

 

Digital legacy services help to establish and implement a plan for wrapping up, memorializing, and closing out your loved one’s accounts. This requires taking an inventory, determining whether or not any specific wishes were named by the loved one prior to their passing, and carrying out those tasks.

 

For many people, the concept of doing this on their own is confusing, upsetting, and even frustrating. We offer digital legacy services that provide comprehensive support from end to end.

 

Why Digital Legacy Services?

 

Family members can be retriggered into grief when they see unexpected reminders of their loved one on social media like birthday notifications, work anniversaries, or friendship reminders.

 

Certain paid accounts might continue to charge the loved one’s mode of payment after that person has passed, which can be hard to sort out after the fact and can add up quickly.

 

Finally, the risk of fraud of the deceased has grown in leaps and bounds in recent years. The identity of a person who has recently passed away spurs scammers and identity thieves to do everything from sending messages as the deceased on social media to stealing money directly.  This is known as ghosting.

 

Unless the deceased put together a full plan of all their online social media, photo storage, subscriptions, and other accounts, this task of closing out is often ignored or forgotten entirely. Hiring someone else to manage this complicated and important task removes additional pressure from the family.

 

Funeral home directors often step in compassionately to help guide families through the process of selecting arrangements. Many of these aspects are ideas that loved ones might not know about. These families turn to funeral home directors to discuss options, which is where digital legacy services can be explained and offered.

 

Meeting Families Where They Are At

 

As a funeral home director, you know more than most that families coping with grief and final arrangements often find themselves overwhelmed. The process of figuring out all the details to manage the funeral arrangements and the packing up and possible sale of a family home can be extremely difficult for family members.

 

Funeral homes play an important role in helping families navigate these complex steps. Most of these family members might not even know the status of the deceased’s online accounts, whether or not these are paid or free, or the security risks posed by keeping them open.

 

Approaching this from an educational standpoint, you can provide further information in their time of need about why digital legacy services matter and how you can connect them with an established and trustworthy service.

 

Building trust with these clients by providing them with key information and options helps to establish that long-term relationship with the entire family. As a director, you already know how important word of mouth and online reviews are in your business. When you take the step to incorporate digital legacy services into the existing funeral home business, this is a unique value you provide that remains memorable and extremely helpful for your clients.

 

 

Funeral homes can add this service to their existing offering easily. Using this service on its own or over the course of building your relationship with these families, funeral homes can gain visibility on the calls they previously lost.

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