Check your email.
Check your text messages.
Scan another preneed application to submit online.
All of these things have become part of most agents' everyday activity.
They are vital to the timeliness, efficiency and effectiveness of your business. Technology is a very hot topic in the funeral and preneed industry. It seems like every day we see a new innovation applied to the funeral industry that is revolutionizing the way we pay a tribute to someone once they have passed. Facebook tributes, QR codes and digital timelines can almost make it overwhelming with all that is available to families today. In the preneed world, we are experiencing that same growth. Here at SNL, we started with iPhone and Droid Rate premium calculators, online uploads for new business, and we now use technology and social media such as Twitter and Facebook to spread our message to the public.
As college football analyst Lee Corso would say, “Not so fast my friend”.
While all these innovations and developments aim to make our jobs easier, we must also remember a very basic and important tenant of our daily work – connecting with our families.
One of our sayings ‘Helping you Help your Family’ is still the foundation of what we do. Of course, to help your families, you must know your families. You need to know their wants, needs and desires and no technology can do that trick. It requires you to sit face to face with them, uncover needs, ask them what they want and help them in planning something that is so important. We are always reminded – we are not selling insurance, we are selling funerals funded by insurance. To properly help a family plan their funeral, you must go through the discovery process (The Gift of Love is a great way to do this!), answer their questions, show them solutions and find the plan that best suits them.
So, don’t forget what we do.
While the technology of today provides many applicable tools for us to use in our daily business, don’t let it interfere with the necessity of building that relationship with your families.