Responses are followed by phone calls to set up appointments with the corporate funeral home’s eager staff of “grief counselors” to sell prepaid insurance policies. Whether or not people return responses, all targeted consumers receive cold calls from hard-sell telephone solicitors (usually at dinnertime), thus reducing the funeral home’s credibility equal to that of telemarketers who hawk replacement windows.
Conglomerates have also trolled for potential customers by calling everyone who attends a visitation and has signed the register book. I met a woman who was responsible for deciphering sloppy handwriting, looking up names in the telephone directory, and then calling them to say, “Since you were just at a visitation at our Big Corporation Funeral Home, I’m sure you enjoyed our facility and would probably like to have your own funeral here someday. Perhaps one of our fine counselors can set an appointment time to come to your home, so you can prepay for your funeral.”
When a widow is making arrangements for her recently deceased spouse, the conglomerate “counselor” is also trained to “advise” her: “We will draw up the necessary paperwork to duplicate these services, so you’ll have a prepaid funeral plan in place for yourself. That way, when your time comes, no one in your family will need to make any hasty decisions under the duress of grief. Sign right here.” Since most folks are in the dark about the funeral industry anyway, this ploy usually works, and the still-sobbing widow probably doesn’t even realize what she has agreed to.
After a carpetbagger comes to town, the company usually signs a contract with a major casket supplier, such as Batesville or Aurora, and then happily offers a volume discount. Since carpetbaggers purchase far more caskets than family-owned operations, they rightfully receive the discount. However, they don’t pass on the savings to consumers. Even the company that I personally feel is a scourge on society, Wal-Mart, passes on savings through their immense buying power. All corporately owned funeral homes and cemeteries in America should probably be discount houses, since they enjoy a tremendous rebate from the suppliers of their most expensive products—caskets.
OVERPRICING AND UNDERSERVING
As I discussed in chapter 11, with an increase in cremation and a decrease in traditional funerals, major casket companies are losing market share. Batesville Casket Company has always told funeral directors that we are much like car dealerships. Consumers must come to us rather than visit an assembly line, and any authorized dealer will do. So once Batesville ascertains the best distribution and storage plan, you will likely see caskets being marketed and sold through Wal-Mart, Costco, or even a stand-alone specialty store.
Right now, however, consumers are learning the hard way that certain purchases are better made from the local funeral home. Corporate-owned cemeteries have increased the price of grave spaces and opening and closing fees to the point of causing an upward spike in the already-increasing number of cremations. Cemetery operators are cutting their own throats with exorbitant fees, and so decreasing the amount of casketed burials. To make up for the loss of income, conglomerate cemeteries have stepped up their attempts to sell caskets, which for years was considered an untouchable product, the sale of which was exclusively a funeral home lock.
Cemeteries could probably pull this off were it not for the unbelievable, unmitigated greed involved. Cemeteries in my area are charging consumers three, four, and even five times the wholesale cost for an item that traditional funeral homes usually charge at most two times wholesale.
One morning a gentleman called, and his first question to me was, “How much is your cheapest steel casket?” I replied $600, and he asked if he could come in right away and see it. After he viewed the inexpensive box, he informed me that he had just left a corporate-owned cemetery and showed me the paperwork for his purchase of the exact same item for $2,650. The casket in question was the exact same casket I had just showed him, and it was from the same manufacturer, which means the cemetery and I paid the same wholesale price: $316. The gentleman was livid at being blatantly overcharged, so I offered to call the cemetery on his behalf and ask about their pricing structure.
The person I spoke to at the cemetery said he personally did not set prices—that was the responsibility of the out-of-state corporate office. He did say that the gentleman in my office would be refunded if he was unhappy with the price. Yet that is the only case in my experience thus far that concluded well for the consumer.
I dealt with a funeral recently in which the wife of a gentleman who had died on a Friday came to me to make funeral arrangements on Saturday morning. When our conversation came to caskets, she lowered her head and told me that she had probably done a “dumb thing.” When I asked what, she explained that she and her late husband had been solicited by phone by a cemetery salesperson a few months ago. The salesperson informed the couple that the call was to verify ownership of their two grave spaces. The couple was told that they needed to come to the cemetery and sign a lot-ownership card to update the cemetery records.
Worrying that something could be amiss with their side-by-side final resting places, the couple dutifully went to the cemetery and not only updated cemetery records but also allowed themselves to be talked into purchasing two overpriced burial vaults, a double bronze grave marker, and two overpriced steel caskets. The cemetery salesperson told the couple that cemetery vaults were much better than any offered by funeral homes, that the bronze marker could be purchased only from the cemetery, and that the caskets were priced lower than funeral homes could offer—all of which is untrue.
I looked over the cemetery sales contract with the bereaved wife and let her know that I could provide her with a much better price on all the items she had purchased. She seemed relieved at the notion and asked me to do just that. I called the cemetery and mentioned that the woman wished to cancel the purchase of the vaults, marker, and caskets. The cemetery salesperson transferred me to the manager and I was informed that there was no way they would refund her money.
I had the conversation on speakerphone, and the bereaved woman asked me to hang up so we could speak privately. She hung her head and told me that she had lost her husband and that she was in no mood to fight with the cemetery at this time and to just move forward with the funeral arrangements and the cemetery purchases. I agreed and realized that this is exactly what the conglomerate cemeteries know—when a death occurs most bereaved folks are in no state of mind to dispute a contract. They just call it a bad idea and a learning experience and move on.
BAIT AND SWITCH
Conglomerates used to be wiser about carrying out a proper takeover. They would pay the former owner a monthly or yearly fee to stay on, work the front door, and otherwise make an appearance when appropriate, so the unsuspecting public would assume that it was business as usual. Perhaps the locals had heard rumblings about the funeral home’s having been sold—only to be reassured when they saw the former owner ensconced in the entryway. In impersonal metropolitan areas, such a takeover usually goes unnoticed. The Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home, undertaker to the stars in the Big Apple, is corporately owned and operated, but Mr. Campbell is nowhere to be seen. Joseph Gawler’s, the premier funeral home in Washington, D.C., serving presidents and diplomats, is also corporately owned. Mr. Gawler isn’t there either.
I have a problem with such name retention. It’s misleading. Consolidators try to mask new ownerships so that locals will believe that the same funeral home that buried Grandpa is burying Grandma. In Ohio, a law once required that after twenty-four months, a new owner of a funeral home must incorporate his or her surname at the beginning or end of the firm title. In other words, if Joe Jones purchased the Smith Funeral Home, he had two years to change the name of the business to either Smith and Jones Funeral Home, Jones and Smith Funeral Home, or Jones Funeral Home. The law was designed to keep owners from taking advantage of a well-known person’s notoriety. Otherwise you could name your business the Jack Nicklaus Funeral Home. Ohio also didn’t allow funeral homes to be titled any ot
her way except by the funeral director or owner’s surname—no Chapel of Chimes Funeral Home or House of Compassion Funeral Home. Whether because of a payoff by the conglomerates or not, I do not know, but Ohio no longer requires a name change. The original can stay. The business manager must merely have his or her name on a plaque in a visible location.
Just as in most huge takeovers, the bigger it gets, the worse it becomes. A friend works at a home bought for the second time by a conglomerate. He no longer makes any funeral arrangements himself because of severe criticism from the corporate office. Early on, after having faxed a contract for goods and services for review, he would receive a scathing reprimand. He was told he should have upgraded the client family to a more expensive casket and a costlier vault, and he should have recommended the $300 Thomas Kinkade register-book package.
On-site decisions, my friend tells me, are no longer permitted. Even a leaky toilet requires a work order forwarded to the California office, where a district manager dispatches a maintenance technician to troubleshoot. Three labor estimates are required, with proper authorization for any repairs costing more than $100.
Large conglomerates such as Houston’s Service Corporation International, Canada’s Alderwoods, and Louisiana’s Stewart Enterprises, to name only three, have encountered some difficulties when buying up funeral home properties in smaller markets across the country. When they overpay it means that their customers experience price increases to make up for it. I have gained quite a bit of new business from disgruntled families who used carpetbagger homes for previous deaths, only to be shocked at the staggering price increases they faced when they returned there for another family member. Some Alderwoods-owned funeral homes actually lowered their prices at some locations after several consumer complaints and business slowdowns. Alderwoods used to be known as the Loewen Group and is now supposedly emerging from bankruptcy proceedings. Service Corporation International has also been involved in bad publicity, accused of unlicensed embalming in Texas and of recycling graves (reselling those already occupied) in Florida.
Conglomerates are also known for hiring newly licensed embalmers and funeral directors for the obvious reason of being able to pay them less. The funeral industry, like teaching, police work, and medicine, is a place where there is simply no substitute for experience and knowing the answers to questions before they are asked.
Part of the slowdown in recent high-dollar acquisitions is attributed to the fact that many former funeral home owners are tiring of hearing from past customers about their distaste for the new corporate ownership. Smaller town directors are usually happy when a competitor sells out to a big conglomerate. Since everybody likes to tell a story better than the last person who told it, word travels fast when a home is sold. You can bet that the family personnel will tell anyone who will listen that a carpetbagger is now in operation.
Two decades ago, the Federal Trade Commission began an investigation that eventually led to the 1984 Funeral Rule, which forced funeral homes to disclose their prices and to charge consumers for individual services rather than a blanket service charge. That service charge had included removal of the deceased from the place of death, embalming (if requested), cosmetics and dressing, arranging and coordination of services, use of facilities for visitation and ceremony, use of related equipment, transportation to the cemetery, secretarial work and bookkeeping, insurance overhead, and licensing fees. It was imposed on every client, regardless of need, and presented to each family as a lump sum, ranging (in today’s dollars) from $2,800 to $4,500, depending on the region. Funeral homes on the East and West coasts generally charged at the higher end. The FTC now requires that funeral homes explain to families how they arrive at their amounts, complete with detailed invoices.
Several incidents in Florida sparked the FTC’s action. Florida’s funeral homes perform many cremations and more ship-outs than probably any other state. Since retirees from all over America populate the Sunshine State, upon their demise, great numbers are shipped back to their respective hometowns for burial. Tales of families being taken advantage of ran rampant, with reports of full service charges for inexpensive ship-outs to blatantly lying that a casket must be purchased to send a body back home.
Emma Sparkman, an eighty-nine-year-old World War II defense plant worker—a beloved Rosie the Riveter—accompanied a friend to a funeral home in 1983 to assist in arranging the viewing and ship-out of her friend’s recently deceased spouse. The two ladies listened to the funeral director’s opening speech and decided to select certain necessary services and a nice solid oak casket. They were not informed that they could simply have had the deceased dressed and placed on a table for a final viewing before the ship-out took place. Instead, they were told that for a viewing of any kind, they needed to purchase a casket.
On the day of the viewing, Mrs. Sparkman noticed that the casket was obviously not the previously selected pricey solid oak but some veneered knockoff. On her friend’s behalf, she expressed her suspicions to the funeral director, who merely pooh-poohed her concern, assigning it to both ladies being elderly, in grief, and perhaps experiencing fading eyesight. Mrs. Sparkman did not buy this explanation. However, her friend saw no need to pursue things further, chalking it up to one of life’s unpleasant experiences. Three years later, Mrs. Sparkman’s beloved husband of more than seventy years passed away. She shied away from the previous funeral home and called another in the same city. Her husband was to be shipped home to Delaware for burial, but a small gathering of her peers nudged her into holding a brief visitation. After selecting an expensive navy-blue, stainless-steel casket, she asked the funeral director to please leave the showroom so that she might be alone for a few moments. She took a lipstick from her purse, knelt down, and wrote her name on the bottom of the casket. At the viewing the next day, although heartbroken and grief stricken, she thoroughly inspected the casket again.
Sure enough, the same bait-and-switch had occurred. The blue model containing her husband Vernon was in no way of the same quality as the one shown to her just the day before. The finish was duller, the handles were different, and the interior was not velvet but a lesser-quality crepe—with no sign of the clandestinely applied lipstick signature underneath. Mrs. Sparkman asked the funeral director to roll the original into the chapel so that the two sat side by side. Even with poor eyesight, all assembled could recognize what had taken place, and Mrs. Sparkman was informed there would be no charge for either the casket or the services.
TO OUR CUSTOMERS
“The goods and services shown in this general price list are those we can provide to our customers. You may choose only the items you desire. However, any funeral arrangements you select include a charge for our basic services and overhead. If legal or other requirements mean that you must purchase an item you did not specifically ask for, we will explain the reason in writing on the statement we provide describing the funeral goods and services you selected.” These words (or similar words to that effect) are the approved FTC explanation that must appear on any funeral home’s general price list. It also includes what is known as the non-declinable charge, an arbitrary amount that homes generally ratchet up by several hundred dollars more than necessary to cover overhead expenses such as rent, insurance, building maintenance, etc. All others are piecemeal—so much for embalming, so much for a hearse, and so on. The FTC Funeral Rule, designed to shield consumers from being overcharged, did just the opposite; it allowed funeral homes to attach the non-declinable fee to each arrangement.
Since the FTC mandates that all funeral homes must not only disclose prices but also offer a general price list to anyone who asks for it, since 1984 there has been a huge surge in price shopping. That spike has increased dramatically in just the past ten years, as a result of customer dissatisfaction, corporate buyouts, and simply because consumers are smarter but less loyal and merely want to save money.
Former employers of twenty years ago swore that Armageddon had arrived in the guise of
the FTC when they realized that price disclosures must be given even over the phone. Some funeral directors assumed that any price shopper was a clandestine “plant” sent by a competitor. One former boss would inform callers that they should come by the funeral home in person so that he could show them the list and explain things more thoroughly. If a potential client did arrive, a tug-of-war of sorts would ensue. My boss would point out certain aspects of the list, all the while keeping his hand on it, hoping the customer would not try to take it with him or her.
If families who have experienced recent deaths would allow trusted friends to shop on their behalf, they would probably realize significant savings. A non-grieving friend is better able to compare apples to apples. A former employer used to instruct us to offer a $500 discount to anyone who called or stopped by carrying a previous offer. “Even if we don’t make any money on this deal,” he used to say, “that’s fine, as long as so-and-so down the street doesn’t get it.” I have found that price shoppers will become former price shoppers once they feel that they have been treated fairly and have received a great perceived value. A happy customer will nearly always call you back.
I also firmly agree with the philosophy behind price disclosures. Overall, the FTC has helped consumers avoid being gouged. Offenders have been forced to adjust their prices to compete, which makes for a better funeral-shopping experience. If your charges are easily justifiable, then you should be happy to share them. I currently advertise prices so consumers immediately know where I stand. I also happily hand out my price list to all who request it, even my colleagues, and I personally go and collect the same lists from them. But I often have to chuckle at the dirty looks I receive.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Arranging for funeral services and merchandise before the need arises is a great concept for all concerned, but I advise a little homework. Inform your immediate family as to your death-care wishes as early as possible, even if they meet your introduction of the topic with disgust. At the very least, decide whether you want ground burial or cremation and communicate that preference clearly. I often meet with bereaved families who have no idea as to the deceased’s choice of disposition: “Dad never mentioned it,” or “I don’t think Mom would want to be cremated, but she never said one way or another.”
Does This Mean You'll See Me Naked? Page 16
