Choosing a quality mortuary service answering service (or mortuary answering service) is a serious undertaking.
After all, you need operators who can truly empathize with your callers while still remaining professional. Death can be a difficult topic for many people, even for funeral home directors, especially when a significant portion of their duty requires them to interact directly with people who are actively mourning.
How can you ensure you’ve hired the right answering service team for your company and your clients?
Start With These Questions
Servicing customers who may be in mourning or who are making their final arrangements can be a significant challenge, even for professional telephone operators.
Everyone has lost someone, which can make it too easy for a telephone operator to internalize what their callers are feeling. Other operators may shut down, making them appear cold in a situation that requires warmth and friendliness. Not just any answering service can do the job. Just because a company is offering mortuary service answering services doesn’t automatically make them the best fit, either.
Try asking these questions to get a better feel for a potential answering service company:
- Are your live operators available 24/7? Mortuary services are far too emotionally complicated for a telephone tree and voicemail system to handle on their own. Instead, your callers should be greeted by a friendly voice no matter what time of day or night they call.Not only will this help the caller feel that they’re heard, it can give your organization a way to go above and beyond simple funeral services. A little compassion in dark times can go a very long way.
- Do your operators speak my customers’ language? Whether your callers are located in Kentucky or California, it’s important that they can easily understand your operators and just as easily be understood. Bilingual answering services can bridge any language barrier that might be present, as well as guarantee that Spanish speakers can easily communicate their messages and their intent. Mortuary services are patient and understanding, and so should your answering service be.
- Can you also book appointments? In addition to answering the phone and taking messages or passing the caller through to your in-house staff, many answering services also provide dedicated appointment scheduling.Automated online appointment-setting tools can help simplify life for all involved. Appointment schedulers work with software that’s compatible with the digital calendar that you’re already using and you’ll be made aware of new visitors and appointments in real time.
There’s an art to helping mortuary clients through their hardest times, but a big part of the puzzle is in listening and providing a professional level of empathy. Getting the balance just right takes experience, as well as a willingness to be available whenever the client needs you. A mortuary service answering service will help you expand your ability to reach out to callers in need with an attitude that says, “My team will be here for you, no matter what.”
