Process Automation

John P. Feeney Funeral Home wanted to capitalize on the rising demand for cremations; however, most families were choosing the least expensive options. The funeral home wanted a way to service these requests but maintain a high-profit margin. The solution was the creation of an online form carefully designed to walk families through the arrangement process without the need for assistance from the funeral home.

The form utilizes very specific instructions, which are customized as the user enters data. Conditional logic controls the display of sections to ensure users are presented only with the sections relevant to them. The form employs signature capture, which is used to finalize contracts and other documents. The form also supports payment entry, providing immediate funds to the funeral home.

Families can also use the form to receive a free quote, without having to complete the entire application or enter any payment details.

Once a form is submitted, the data is automatically merged into custom documents and emailed to the funeral home, where they are printed and finalized with the director’s signature. The raw form data is also output to a file and emailed to the funeral home. The contents of this file are copied into a field in the funeral home’s management software, which was configured to parse this information and create a new customer record to eliminate manual data entry.

By allowing families to complete arrangements themselves, the funeral home saves time by not needing to field questions, meet with families in person, or manually enter data—all of which took upwards of two hours. The online system reduced the time to fulfill arrangements to less than 15 minutes.