French Funerals and Cremations Report Significant Business Benefits From Passare’s End-of-Life Management Platform
New Mexico’s Largest Independent Funeral Home Focuses on Family Relationships, Builds Solid Foundation for Growth With Passare
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – December 2, 2014 – Passare, Inc., a trusted and relevant source for End-of-Life planning and management, today announced that French Funerals and Cremations has reported improved business benefits from using the company’s End-of-Life Management Platform. With Passare, the independent funeral home has been able to enhance the quality of its relationships with families, as well as build a better base for future growth.
Founded in 1907, French Funerals and Cremations is New Mexico’s largest and oldest family-owned funeral home, serving approximately 2,000 families annually through five locations. The funeral home was one of the earliest adopters of Passare’s innovative solution—providing insights that have been instrumental in refining and driving product development.
According to feedback from French’s funeral directors, the most noticeable benefits have stemmed from Passare’s Collaboration Center, which offers families the option of entering information—online at their own convenience—in advance of the initial meeting with the funeral home. With the Collaboration Center, French and the families it serves are able to shrink meeting times in many cases by an average of 30-45 minutes—and in other cases more for families who are comfortable interacting via the Internet. This higher productivity has translated into a less stressful experience for the families they serve.
More importantly, the Collaboration Center has transformed the nature of these meetings for both parties. With the ability to engage the process on their own time, families gain a greater sense of control and often have a clearer picture of the services they envision. Funeral directors—who can simultaneously preview a family’s preliminary data and preferences—are able to gain a stronger sense of specific needs and adopt a more consultative role. As families use the Collaboration Center, French is able to help them more fully explore ranges of personalization, which is consistent with their mission to help “create funerals as unique as a loved one’s life lived.”
“Since the beginning, our profession has relied on a more traditional process of having families come into our locations to engage our processes and the range of options,” explained D.F. “Duffy” Swan, chairman and part owner of French Funerals and Cremations. “With Passare, we’re able to offer a new approach that fosters an even better environment of openness that helps reduce the more traditional sense of guarded apprehension. This, in turn, translates into a better and more productive relationship with our families.”
According to Swan, Passare also provides French with a strong foundation for differentiating and growing its business. For example, he expects Passare’s rich online capabilities to help them serve families with pre-need contracts going forward. Swan also anticipates that the more robust online capability, in time, will allow the company greater geographic reach without having to construct facilities in other locations.
“I think there’s a misperception that technology is all about automation and therefore is somehow de-personalizing,” said Swan. “In fact, we’ve found the opposite to be true. Passare’s solution enables us to deepen our relationships with families by collaborating online and granting them more control.”
ABOUT PASSARE:
Passare, Inc. is the industry’s first and most comprehensive End-of-Life management platform. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, the privately held company leverages technology to transform both the way funeral homes will operate in the 21st century and the service experience for families. Passare eases the emotional, financial, and logistical burden by guiding families through one of life’s most important passages with greater simplicity and peace of mind. For more information, please visit www.passare.com.
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ABOUT FRENCH FUNERALS AND CREMATIONS
French Funerals and Cremations is New Mexico’s largest and oldest family-owned funeral service company. Founded by Chester T. French in 1907, the French Family of Companies has served our communities for more than a century with a tradition of integrity and dedication to service excellence. One of the few remaining locally-owned and operated funeral and cremation businesses in New Mexico, we help families discover funerals as unique as the life lived through our five locations across Albuquerque and Rio Rancho. For more information, please visit: www.frenchfunerals.com.
