Unboxing The Experience

In a recent presentation to Germany’s food, beverage,sleep and hospitality industry, management consultant Joseph Pine, the founder and leader of the experience economy, shared these thoughts.

“There has been an accelerated shift into the experience economy. Covid-19 and the short years following have helped many of us see that we don’t need any more stuff. What gives meaning to our lives are shared experiences. Ordinary goods and services are no longer enough for guests and customers. Consumers today expect memorable and even meaningful experiences.

Who better than contemporary funeral homes and avant-garde funeral directors to co-create, stage, and manage meaningful albeit transformational shared experiences? When done correctly, funeral homes can engage families, or their “guests” and thrive quickly transcending the services into engaging experiences. As just a small example, Moments of just “unboxing” consumer products from mail-order companies have become shared experiences. Countless videos of personal and review YouTube videos capture and share the experience of unboxing with millions of views. Mail-order companies expertly craft these moments and experiences like; Empathy Wines, Yumble and of course Apple, among many others, that rise above just the sale of goods. Unboxing!? The cornerstone of the funeral home profession has always been service during the time a family, or guest, spends with our funeral home. Make it an experience! Nothing less.   

Pine said “A service is intended to save time, save consumers and companies' effort. Service is about about time well saved. Experiences, on the other hand, are all about time well spent. During an experience, people value the time they spend with you. Guests commit to you and commit; to create a memory.”

This presentation could have easily been shared with the contemporary funeral home. These principles are even more so important during an unprecedented time of post-pandemic that has undoubtedly changed the way we exist and interact. The funeral home is experiencing and struggling with a decline in gatherings, rituals, ceremonies, and services that are the hallmark of the profession. Unfortunately, there seems to be no recovery without engaging experiences. How can a funeral home best present a well-thought-out beginning, middle, and end of your time together with guests using well-trained, characterized staff, processes, facilities, and products so that the staged experience becomes a guest’s sustained uplifting memory? I’m convinced that when a funeral home’s time comes to a close with guests they part with a sense of fulfillment and being uplifted. The funeral home has created that meaningful and engaging experience.   

Pine continued to share, “Consumers need a reason to go to a physical store. COVID-19 and its fallout has accelerated digital consumer behavior by ten years, or more. More and more people are ordering online. The experience you offer as a company can become an even more important reason for consumers and guests to go to a physical place”. 

Today, Technology is a large part of how a funeral home delivers service and stage experiences. On almost every occasion, obituaries, or as we call them “e-bituaries” are the most effective, easily searched, and engaged with through the funeral home’s web presence, including social media. Flowers are ordered almost exclusively through internet-based retailers and websites, including the funeral home’s. Tribute videos have been commonplace for some time, and live web streaming with on-demand recording is now a regular part of the goodbye experience. Optimizing classic service moments to build a better funeral home experience gives guests a good cause to choose a place for time well spent.

Work is theater and the funeral home is a stage. To give purpose to guests and their time it is important to stage an experience that draws undivided attention. The experience must be communicated in consistency with everything else the funeral home does, sustaining memory. As a result, guests will memorably spend their time while engaging the funeral home. 

#crerancelebration #heartfelt