Nicole Vullo on 
Written By Jennifer Graziano, Coxe & Graziano Funeral Home
There are many seismic shifts that have rattled the foundation of funeral service in recent years. The funeral consumer has changed; it’s all about getting the most while paying the least. Couple this with industry challenges; a dire shortage of labor and a steady decline of qualified candidates seeking entry into the field, and the situation grows grimmer. The challenges we face on both the consumer and labor fronts are not readily solvable but there are steps we can take to mitigate the impact. Among them, employing a cooperative and combined approach amongst funeral homes and working together to rebrand the industry by setting new norms and standards.
On the consumer front, we can attribute this latitudinal shift behavior to the post-Covid societal trends of the world we live in. Everything is about convenience; most things can be attained by the click of a mouse or a double click on the side of our smart phones. Many consumer experts still point to Covid as the culprit, as it is responsible for a significant altering in consumer trends across many industries. We no longer needed to leave our house for essentials, we learned to exist in the absence of human interaction and our eyes became beholden to our computer screens as the portal to the outside world.
There is a dichotomy in the modern consumer, their expectation of concierge level service, but at the lowest possible price. They want the most while paying the least. And this new world that includes the likes of Amazon, and Temu has trained consumers to look for the lowest price and the fastest delivery. Another facet of the post-Covid world, brand loyalty can no longer be taken for granted. The rising generation that will be arranging funerals will seldom care about the beautiful services we provided in the past for grandma or grandpa. They will justify using a low-cost entity, unknown to them, as they find the lower cost is more valuable than the generational bonds that tied their family to a particular funeral home. They will search up “cheap funerals” and subsequently call every funeral home that is yielded in the search to compare prices. They will abandon the traditional services that their own family had opted for in the past. Why have a wake for mom, all her friends have passed away, is a statement I hear with all too much frequency. Modern consumers shop funeral homes and these price inquiry calls can come at all hours of the day or night. These consumers take up significant amounts of a funeral director’s time and we’re forced to go line by line not only explaining our charges but justifying them. They, the consumer, are pinning us against each other and sadly, so many funeral directors are quick to abandon their price structure to “grab the call”. Maybe they end up with the family, but they also end up setting a bad precedent of devaluing our industry.
The scenarios outlined are grim, but they are not far-fetched. They are happening daily to funeral homes throughout the country. So, what is the answer? How do we as a profession survive this new world and acclimate to this new consumer? A consumer whose value system arguably seems to lack any value at all. Well, there’s not an exact formula but the answer ultimately rests in a uniting of forces within the industry. There is strength in numbers and a coming together might be the only key to our collective survival. We cannot be engaged in a race to the bottom, undercutting our competitor, looking to discount solely to make a day’s pay. We are better than that, we are worth more. Our prices should compensate for our overhead and allow us to be deservingly profitable. Owners should also be priced well enough to bring in quality staff to help operate our business and elevate our brands. And if we want quality directors, we need to pay quality salaries.
Let’s face it, we of all people should understand the value of living and living well. We should always attempt to help a family in need, but our answer can’t always be to discount to take the call from a competitor. Lowering prices on a whim makes our price structure seem arbitrary and make us nothing more than cliche salesmen. Funeral directors should believe in themselves, their calling and the firm’s mission. If everyone gets on board and agrees to stop the senseless price undercutting, the consumer will have no choice but to recognize the value of the sacred work we do.
This industry has long been plagued with a professional paranoia where we wonder if our competitors are staying up nights trying to steal clients from us. And while some probably are, perhaps there are ways to have intelligent dialogues and form professional alliances with our colleagues. We need to stop seeing them as the enemy but rather allies in this collective fight to save the profession. Look at your neighbors as colleagues not competitors. They are dealing with the same frustrations and waging the same battles as you. Together we can reset the standards of pricing and compensation, and perhaps even further the dialogue. For example, perhaps colleagues agree that only urgent death or death-related calls will be returned after hours. Perhaps we can consider trying to avoid viewings and visitations on Sundays, as we are all struggling to staff the building on weekends. Perhaps together we can set the new “norms” of the industry.
Our industry is not in danger of extinction but the way in which we’ve conventionally operated is. It is incumbent upon us as professionals to recognize these emerging trends and be equipped to handle them. Funeral directors have long hung their hat on yesteryear, avoiding change at all costs because “that’s not how it WAS done”. This resistance to adapt will not serve us well. Yesterday’s practices can’t serve as the roadmap for tomorrow. The new convenience-seeking, cost conscious consumer is here and we are ill-equipped to handle them on our own. Uniting to create new industry norms and rewriting the “rules”, however, provides us with a clear and walkable path for growth and survival.
Jen has carried her family’s legacy into the 4th generation. A fixture at the funeral home since her early years, she has embraced the call to service and has taken her work outside the confines of the funeral home into the community at large. Jen has spearheaded many projects and organizations including Mamaroneck’s coveted “Harbor Fest” that she chaired for six years. She also served as a two term President of the Mamaroneck Chamber of Commerce. Jen is active in daily operations of all 3 funeral homes. She understands the delicate balance of providing dignity and service to the deceased while comforting and caring for the living. Jen had initiated the funeral home’s aftercare program more than a decade ago and it remains a viable discussion group that has assisted many people in dealing with the difficulties of loss. She is responsible for hosting the funeral home’s coveted “Senior Appreciation Day” at local senior centers in Larchmont/Mamaroneck, Harrison and Greenwich. In addition she serves on the Community Advisory Board for Greenwich Hospital, a Board Member of the Greenwich Chamber of Commerce and President of the Sts. John & Paul PSPA. She is a frequent lecturer and panelist discussing senior issues in the community. She is a graduate of The Ursuline School, Fordham University, Touro Law School and the American Academy McAllister Institute. Jen is also a lector and parishioner of Sts. John & Paul and a member of the Larchmont Shore Club. She is the host of a weekly radio program on WVOX, “Time to Talk” focusing on sensitive issues of advanced planning and the creator of “Coming of Age Magazine”, which further touches on those issues. She’s recently created a line of memorial jewelry, RememBar Collection, comprised of “wearable memories”, which allow you to carry the ones you love with you wherever you go. She is most proud of her number one role, “Mia’s mom”.