At least without talking to me first.
This just happened to me, and let me tell you, the family that bought their casket online are a sweet, hardworking, frugal family. The wanted a deal, and as a frugal person myself, I can't slight that idea.
However, as I unpacked the dirty refrigerator box that the casket arrived in, I noticed what I always notice with shipped in caskets. The paint stinks. The plastic flower shaped emblems on the side are falling off. (or sometimes they are stickers that are already peeling off) The cap that covers the casket lock is yellow metallic, while the rest of the plastic handles are rose metallic. The lid doesn't quite open properly, and the interior is dusty, with a hint of grime in the lid. The hinge is flimsy, and the handles creak when the empty casket is lifted up. On the head of the casket, at the bottom, a label- "Made in China".
My frustration isn't that I didn't sell a casket. Really, that doesn't matter to me. I don't work on commission, so whether the families I serve purchase a cardboard box for cremation or a gold plated casket for their loved one, I don't care one bit. (Well, maybe a little, those gold and bronze ones are way too heavy!)
So you ask again, why do I care? Well, here's a few reasons:
- If I sell the casket, ordering it and ensuring that it arrives safely and undamaged is my problem. I can have it arrive on a specific day, and if there's an issue, my casket supplier is 25 minutes away, and eager to please me- if I'm unhappy with anything at all, I have a fresh casket here in no time. If you order online, I can't help you if you're unhappy with your purchase, can't be your advocate in case you want an exchange.
- I can order it for a specific delivery day and time, to make sure it doesn't arrive too early or too late.
- Our caskets are made in the USA, and the quality of them is much higher. The paint is smooth, doesn't smell of cheap glue in the interior, the hinges are solid, and things rarely fall off.
- I don't have to unpack the ones I order. I don't have to tear apart a cardboard box, dispose of several huge pieces of styrofoam, and try to clean the casket up before the family sees it. It takes 3 times as long to prepare the casket to be seen by the public because of this mess.
- I can price match!! I cannot speak for other funeral homes, but where I work, if a family mentions that they saw a casket online, all they need to do is bring me a printout (or email the link) of the casket they want, and I can almost always find the equivalent in my catalogs. If I can't find an equivalent casket, I'll tell you straight up, "go ahead and order that casket, it's a great deal." I recognize that price is the bottom line, and I am not going to upsell you, or make you feel guilty for wanting a less expensive casket.
By upselling the consumer or insulting their desire to purchase frugally, it breaks the fragile trust that families have with their funeral director. They trust that what they have requested, be it cremation or burial, will go off without a hitch. If I were to try sneaky tactics to make money off people, their faith in me is lost, and now they're questioning every move I make. I don't want a family doubting my ability to serve them.
We are called bloodsuckers, nasty devils that take advantage of people in a vulnerable state, and this hurts, since I bend over backwards for my families- even purchasing music out of my own pocket (not reimbursed for this) for their services because they don't know how to, driving to their houses to finish paperwork, calling every single dixieland band in the area for prices, writing and submitting obituaries that are 3 pages long for them, listening to them telling me "no, move those flowers 1/2 inch to the left", answering questions on the phone at 3am. It's my job to perform duties to my families' expectations- it's what I went to school for, it's what I love doing. The best thing that families do for me is send me Thank You cards- they make my day more than anything!
I'd also like to say for those that wish to perform their own funerals, the do-it-yourself folks who don't feel they need a funeral director- I'm fine with that. I think that people who get their own burial permits, take their loved ones to the cemetery, handle all aspects of their loved one's death are strong minded, and it probably brings a huge amount of satisfaction and closure to them. I admire that, and wish that more funerals and wakes were held in the home- a funeral home can be intimidating and cold.
I don't want to serve you if you don't want to be served. I mean that in a polite way, I mean that very respectfully. You are not required to come to my workplace and use our services. But if you do, please say something if you want a less expensive casket than you see at the funeral home. Chances are good that I can meet your price.
And if you order online anyway, I can't do anything about it. I'll still serve you, because that's what I do.
