The Psychology of Commitment | Funeral Director Daily

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When you are in a competitive business you need to acquire customers and then find a way to make sure that those customers are “commited to you”.  Many times acquiring the customer might be the easy part, but making sure the customer stays commited to you and loyal to your brand can be difficult over time.

Potential customers whom funeral homes have acquired, simply by being that customer’s choice, for future business can be extremely susceptible to leaving that commitment to your firm between the time they decide to use your firm and when the may actually need your services.  They might see a bad review, hear a negative comment, or simply be seated at a funeral you are conducting in a seat they prefer not to sit in. . . . potential clientele can be funny that way.

In my view, that potential client is very susceptible to changing Death Care options until they have some type of commitment on their part to your firm.  Probably the best form of commitment for retention is a funded pre-arrangement.  That’s why funeral homes go to such great efforts to put them in place — they are a large positive predictor of turning customers by choice into commited customers.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

But are there other ways to strengthen that commitment for people who have your firm as number one in their mind but are not ready or able to financially pre-arrange?  In politics when the candidates are going through the primary election season you will see them all announce websites to go to where you can make a donation. . . . and the amount doesn’t matter.  Candidates know, that once they have a financial commitment from a voter — even if it is for only $5 — they have a commited supporter. . . . .and commited supporters become “Brand Advocates” so there is a great deal of value in having them.

Death Care, and especially direct cremation companies, have a plethora of online operators where one can register their future wishes.  Most of these websites will take and store that information for a future “at need” death at no cost to the consumer.

My question for you to ponder this weekend is, “Like in politics, would a minimum charge of $10 with the online arrangment result in a “stronger commitment” from the potential customer and a greater liklihood that they will become a brand ambassador and psychologically commited to your firm, than simply allowing them to sign up for no cost?”

In the pre-internet days of America’s cremation preference build-up (1975-2000), there are some great success stories of firms that did just that by allowing consumers to be invested or commited to a cremation provider for a $25 lifetime fee.  In many cases these consumers were told that the initial $25 fee would be taken off the price at the time of cremation. . .some even allowed a $50 credit “at need” for the $25 lifetime fee.

Funeral Director Daily take:  In discussions with firms who did this type of marketing in the past I found it amazing how consumers became incredible brand ambassadors for cremation over traditional burial once they had this psychological commitment. . . and now I wonder if the populace will once again make a “commited” move — this time embracing and advocating for direct cremation with no services or do-it-yourself services rather than cremation with services as the most popular form of human disposition services.

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