The Family DIY Debate: Eulogize’s Nick Kelly Tackles Funeral Directors’ Toughest Questions on Allowing Family Self-Service
It’s been just over a year since Australians Nick Kelly and Ben Sutton introduced their modernized funeral tribute platform, Eulogize, to U.S. deathcare professionals. As they’ve made the funeral convention circuit and spoken with more and more directors, one particular Eulogize feature seems to attract the most curiosity: the ability to hand over the creative reins of tribute creation to families, either entirely or in a hybrid format.
For a profession in which comprehensive care and hands-on support is customary, offering families a self-service option may seem daunting or even wrong. However, while Eulogize is most definitely breaking new ground and changing the way funeral homes approach tribute creation, this is one of those cases where change is good. Kelly understands why you might have questions about Eulogize’s self-service option, and he’s here with all the answers, even to those questions you may hesitate to ask.
Q: If I ask the family to create their own tribute materials, aren’t I shirking my responsibilities as a funeral director?
Nick Kelly: This is a question that a funeral director asked during the webinar we hosted with Ryan Thogmartin in April, and I was so glad to hear it. The answer is no, this is not a shirking of your responsibility. This is not you offloading that work back onto the family. Obviously, you are capable of creating these videos, memorial cards, bookmarks, and other tributes; it’s something that funeral directors have always handled for the families they serve. It’s also a task that used to be really hard and inaccessible outside the funeral home. However, there are several situations in which a family will truly appreciate the opportunity to do it themselves, particularly since Eulogize has alleviated the technical pain points. Importantly, you decide how much access to grant, from simply letting them upload photos to giving full editing rights, and you still review and approve the final files before anything goes to print or is played in the chapel. Eulogize is offering you another way to personalize your level of service, not just in a creative sense, but in an engagement and interaction sense. You can now give that family a truly cathartic experience. For families who want the self-service option, you’re facilitating and potentially improving their connection, helping them navigate the grieving process.
Q: Can you elaborate on how creating memorials with Eulogize can help a family with the grieving process?
Nick Kelly: Sure. We’ve chatted with grief experts about how going through photos together, telling the stories of a loved one, and just reminiscing can help with the processing of grief. Ben [Sutton] tells the story of coming together with his wife’s family to go through all her grandfathers’ photos together and telling stories, sharing family history as they created the video slideshow. It was a lovely family moment for them. Our experts also tell us that simply having a task can help someone channel their energy when they’re feeling a little bit lost. Then there’s a personal factor of feeling that they’ve contributed to the effort and can see and take pride in what they’ve created. Families feel more connected to the tributes and memorial products in that sense.
Q: Why would I even offer families the option to create tributes themselves when my staff already handles this in-house?
Nick Kelly: Because Eulogize automates the fiddly, technical steps, it’s not about pushing work back onto the family; it’s about offering an opportunity for relatives to come together, swap stories, and shape the tribute in their own words. Self-service can actually enhance the level of service you can provide, and you still approve the finished files before anything is printed or played. Plus, as the funeral consumer continues to evolve, families will become more tech-confident, and many will expect a DIY option.
The funeral director can still decide the level of access on a family-by-family basis. Maybe the family only uploads photos, maybe they tweak a layout you started, or perhaps they take the reins entirely. Eulogize is giving funeral directors an extra option to select from as they understand what each family’s needs are.
There are times when self-service is the only choice: a memorial that can’t happen for months, children on deployment or siblings scattered across time zones, or a tech-savvy family that asks explicitly to “do it themselves.” Giving families access to Eulogize’s self-service portal lets them work on their projects on their own time. Our data shows that the average self-service family member works in the portal after office hours, often late at night. Eulogize offers 24/7 support, so there are no times when we can’t help a funeral home or a family.
And perhaps the best reason: deeper personalization. When families guide the design themselves, they weave in the inside jokes, nicknames, and little memories your staff could never know. They are not forced into old, dated templates; instead, they can shape a tribute that truly captures the spirit of their loved one, making the final product more meaningful for everyone who sees it.
Q: So what are the benefits of enabling self-service for the funeral home?
Nick Kelly: Aside from the benefits for the family we already discussed, there are two main wins on offering self service: time and revenue. Gathering photos, going back and forth with additions or changes, discussing layouts, checking spellings, the list goes on; these all take up a lot of time. Reducing or eliminating these tasks from your employees’ day gives them more time to focus on other, bigger tasks. Then there are all the situations we spoke of earlier, such as delayed services, where family DIY is the only option. If your funeral home doesn’t have a way to facilitate that, then that’s revenue lost.
Q: What if the family creates something that looks awful, has lots of errors, or doesn’t work? Won’t that reflect negatively on our funeral home?
Nick Kelly: I get why this worries some directors, but Eulogize takes the risk out of self-service. You always have full oversight; you can hop into the project at any moment to see how it’s progressing. Families start with our professionally designed templates, so they are never staring at a blank page. Plus, our editor is not only easy to use but also hard to get wrong. Key details, dates, and spellings flow straight from your case management system, and you can double-check anything in seconds. And finally, because every file is generated in the same environment, you can be confident that the stationery will print cleanly and the videos will play flawlessly on your equipment every time. Plus, if a file ever goes missing or gets left behind, you can download a new one from any device, anywhere. Whatever the mix, you remain the final sign-off before anything is printed or played, so quality and reputation stay in your hands.
Q: Self-service is a great option, but will it be right for every case?
Nick Kelly: Absolutely not. Family self-service is not going to be the best option for every family. It’s a real case-by-case situation. It’s a choice. It is absolutely a choice. There are many dispositions and services where it does not make sense for the funeral director even to mention it. Here, the funeral director can simply use Eulogize in-house, taking advantage of our streamlined workflows internally, and just using the custom-branded preview emails to send out approvals to the family.
Sometimes, where self-service isn’t the right choice, you can offer a hybrid model where you create the product, and the family just logs in to add their personalization or little flourishes. Eulogize makes the creation process so easy that you can sit in the arrangement room with the family and complete 90% of a program with them in the same time it takes to run through casket or flower selections. It’s super flexible in that way. I just spoke with a funeral director in Oklahoma who signed on to Eulogize three or four months ago but was skeptical about family self-service. He initially used Eulogize in-house only, but eventually granted a few families access. He told me he was surprised at just how positive the families’ reactions have been, and they’ve thanked him for letting them come together to create something. It’s not a case of forcing this on a family, but for a family who’d like to be involved in the design experience, it opens up that option. When it comes down to it, having Eulogize as a tool in your toolbox, having the self-service option in your back pocket, is just another way your funeral home can personalize and customize your offerings to each family you serve.
To learn more about Eulogize, book a complimentary demo with the team or reach out via the Eulogize website.
