What do your client families want? It may not always be what you think.

October 13, 2023/Business, Products/

I recently ran across this article from Changing America that is titled, “What’s the fastest food drive-thru? It isn’t Chick-fil-A”. It’s a very interesting article that may be able to give us some sense to how we should view our customers in the death care realm.

It’s interesting to note that in a drive-thru study which included 1,500 drive-thru visits to major fast-food chains, Chick-fil-A came in “dead last” among speed of fulfilling orders. When put with other results, I find that thought-provoking and something that death care merchants should take in a perspective of our work and customer satisfaction.

You see, I find it thought-provoking because when going to a drive-thru restaurant, the common thought process would be that you are in a hurry to get your meal. And yet, Chick-fil-A came in “dead last”, with a wait time of almost 8 minutes per driver in that category, but reigned as the overall satisfaction leader among the ten companies surveyed.

As a matter of fact, Chick-fil-A had a total satisfaction score of 97% and was the only restaurant to record a “friendliness” score of over 90% and a 0% score for “Unfriendliness”.

As a funeral director I read this article thinking about all the times that I hurriedly threw on my suit and tie to get to a nursing home or hospital as quick as I could. While I’m sure that was appreciated by client families I now believe my friendliness and the way we conducted our business, which included at least in my opinion, giving great value, was much more a reason for our success.

Maybe today is the day to take an introspective look at how you and your employee team are treating your clientele. Can you get to the point of 0% on an unfriendliness scale? I think that should be a goal for every death care provider in the world.

Related — Our friends, Alan Creedy and Danny Jefferson, from the podcast “Two Guys and a Question” recently did a short podcast on this exact topic. This podcast is entitled, “Are you chasing people away” and you can access it here.

Related — I also noticed this article on LinkedIn authored by former McKesson Corporation CEO John Hammergren entitled “From grocery bagger to CEO, values are the foundation for leadership“. In it, like being friendly, he points out that it is each employee’s responsibility to “hold ourselves accountable for the highest standards of work performance and by innovating to make improvements in our area of responsibility, no matter what title we hold — no different than the grocery bagger looking for a better way to help Mrs. Beliveau get her groceries out to her car.”

I found the article an interesting short read, partly by the fact that I remember John being a grocery bagger at our local Red Owl store during his high school years, but also by the fact that leadership must give “lower level employees” the power to innovate in order to solve problems and help out. . . . . . That is not something that is always evident in many “Top Led” family funeral establishments. However, in today’s world the ability to innovate when necessary is almost a must for all level employees. The inability to do so may, in my opinion, lead to less satisfaction by the families we are serving.

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