Meet the team: Funeralbooker

Chief operations officer, James Dunn, explains how new online platform, Funeralbooker, can expand your local customer base

Funeralbooker.com is a new website that connects funeral professionals with at-need customers. It’s a straightforward way for families to find and contact a funeral director in their area, all within just a few minutes and from the comfort of their home. The site was born out of a realisation that increasingly people are going online to search for local funeral directors and often they only end up seeing the digital marketing and online advertising of the large chains. They aren’t able to easily appreciate who the local funeral directors are and, importantly, who’s behind the name above the door.

We believe independents can offer a far more personal service, at a higher standard and at a lower price than the large chains, so we don’t think that’s right. Funeralbooker is an innovative and modern platform that helps independent funeral directors compete in the new online world.

“Most people now rely upon the internet to answer their questions and it’s the first resource many now turn to. Funeralbooker helps these people find local companies, understand their services and prices, all the time making it as quick and painless as possible. Within just a few minutes, the family will have all the information it needs to make an informed decision and contact a funeral director.”

“The team behind Funeralbooker has a diverse background of experience across online platforms, small businesses, finance, technology and marketing. Our vision was to bring these skills and experience together to build a great platform for customers and funeral directors. During development we spent a lot of time with funeral directors, understanding the business and finding out what works for them. We’re incredibly grateful for all the advice, support and guidance we’ve received which has been fundamental in the site’s creation.”

How do funeral directors use funeralbooker?

1 Create a showcase page: You create a free profile page for your business and set your services. It’s really simple and will instantly boost your online presence.

We handle all the technical aspects safely and securely, so you can focus on what you do best – helping customers. Our support team is even on hand to help out whenever you need.

2 We find customers: We use our digital marketing expertise to connect with customers who are searching online for funeral services, helping them see who the good independents are in their area.

3 We build their booking: We guide the customer through selecting the key funeral options such as burial or cremation, location, coffins and flowers.

4 They choose you: We show them the local funeral directors on funeralbooker – they choose you based on your profile, services, price, and reputation. Importantly, all our funeral directors fill in their pricing beforehand, so the customer knows that the price they see is the price they get.

5 You confirm and engage: We send you their booking. You give them a call to confirm and get to know them.

6 You arrange: You arrange their funeral just as you normally would. We’ll take care of all the online admin for you – card payment processing, invoice sharing, arrangement sharing.

7 You build your online reputation: Your customer tells everyone what a great job you’ve done, reinforcing your reputation and bringing you more customers.

How do customers use Funeralbooker?

“Customers who don’t have a specific funeral director in mind will typically search online, often using phrases such as ‘how do I find a funeral director?’, or ‘funeral directors in Manchester’. At the moment, these searches produce lots of individual websites for all sorts of businesses and families are typically a little overwhelmed and not sure how the services compare. A lot of the time, people just give up and pick the one at the top of the page, often an advert for one of the large chains. We let customers know there is a better and easier way, that by using Funeralbooker they can find the information they want totally impartially and within minutes.

“Our website then guides them through a simple process that allows them to indicate whether they want cremation or burial, what type of coffin and other furnishings they want and where they’d like the funeral to take place. We show them the funeral directors in their area who have joined our platform. Crucially, customers see a ‘full’ price including not only the funeral director’s fees and products, but also the relevant disbursements. This is totally new for the industry and means customers can really quickly understand who offers what, and at what price, in their area.

“We know a funeral is about far more than just price though, so we encourage all our funeral directors to build a really rich and beautiful profile. We want customers to be able to understand all about what makes your firm special, be it the heritage, the team or the service.

“We’d really encourage all funeral directors to visit the customer site at www.funeralbooker.com and try it out!”

Helping you serve more customers

“Funeralbooker is aimed at independent funeral director businesses who want to increase their web presence and reach a greater number of at-need customers. Funeralbooker is all about helping customers find good funeral directors so it appeals equally well to boutique funeral directors in small villages, as to fast growing, city based family firms. Funeral directors benefit from our digital marketing expertise, as well as an innovative booking system that means you can take on customers directly, 24/7.

“For funeral directors it’s really simple to take the online bookings. Families’ requests are sent straight to their chosen funeral director,and this can take place around the clock. The customer will have seen your price already, and has chosen you, so there is no need for any further quoting. There’s no sign up cost, monthly fees or tie-in period for funeral directors so we really do view this an essentially risk-free way to reach more customers.

When a customer books through funeralbooker then we charge a 10 percent commission on funeral director fees and products (e.g. excluding disbursements). This allows us to invest in developing the platform, purchase online advertising, and pay our bills!”

Here’s how easy it is to get started

1 Visit www.director.funeralbooker.com and register your business

2 Fill in some information about your business and upload some photos

3 Fill in your prices and services

4 That’s it! Just wait for us to start bringing you customers!

There are no sign up costs, monthly fees or tie-in periods – what’s to stop you giving it a try? We want to make it as easy as possible for funeral directors to get up and running on funeralbooker, so if you have any questions or would like any help just call us on 020 8629 1600 or email us on team@funeralbooker.com and one of the team will help you out.