May 2020

Page A24 MAY 2020 FUNERAL HOME & CEMETERY NEWS S ec t i on A CORONAVIRUS INDUSTRY RESPONSE COVID-19 Deathcare Service Business Lessons from COVID Will Last a Lifetime By Welton Hong Welton Hong Hopefully, even as you’re reading this, your deathcare firm has made core changes to deal with the impact of the COVID-19 crisis and resulting restrictions on burial and cremation services. If you haven’t—if the plan was to “weather the storm” and simply wait for restrictions to ease up so you could go back to doing business the same way you always did before, I must be blunt: These are changes deathcare firms needed to make for quite a while now, well before we ever heard of the novel And sure, I get it. It’s not easy to make big changes even under the best of circumstances, much less when the entire country is dealing with a massive health and economic crisis. But here’s the thing: Even if the coronavirus had never arrived and caused this massive interruption to business practices, it would have been a great benefit to your firm to start using Zoom (or other videoconferencing technol- ogy). It would have been a big help to start using Trello, a very user-friendly and inexpensive tool for project man- agement. These are software options you should be using now, and they’re tools you will need to use going forward. So if you’ve been reluctant to get started, I assure you, it’s time to stop waiting and move forward. Digital, cloud-based tools make business much easier , more convenient , and more efficient . They don’t even require a massive financial investment. Some require virtually no investment at all. Practically since I founded Ring Ring Marketing, I’ve been able to run it from anywhere. I can communicate with my 50-plus employees, share files, conduct online meetings, supervise projects, and accomplish much more from literally anywhere. I do it from the office and at home. I do it from hotel rooms all over America and even overseas. I can run my entire business from anywhere, at any time. And given that I’m constantly on the road when things are “normal,” having this tech infrastructure isn’t a luxu- ry: It’s a necessity . At my firm, we use Trello to manage projects. We use Mi- crosoft Teams for internal communication and file sharing, along with MS Outlook for email. We use Zoom for vid- eo meetings, both internally and externally—I alone average over three dozen Zoom meetings every single week. We use MindMeister for collaborative planning. Look, I love being in my home office in Las Vegas. I love having my staff there. (Well, I did love it—but I also didn’t hesitate to mandate that they would work from home as soon as recommendations were announced.) There’s certainly a benefit to meeting in person. And I realize that a marketing firm and a funeral home are completely different business- es—you can’t simply do everything remotely. However, you can do a lot more remotely than you re- alize. Many of you have already realized that to some de- gree, but the possibilities go far beyond what you might have already imagined. I should take a moment to briefly talk specifically about coronavirus. And regardless of how far America has proceeded (and is on the verge of proceed- ing) in completely “return- ing to normal,” you still need to make these changes. They will help you do business smarter and more efficiently in the digital age. And you’ll be better prepared for any crisis—small or large—that arises in the future. By “changes,” here’s the short version of what I’m talking about: Most funeral homes in America found they needed to transition into video conferencing when state and local governments mandated so- cial distancing and restrictions on large gatherings. They also found they needed to provide a “virtual con- sultation” option for meeting with families for immedi- ate needs. Further, if they typically did “lunch-and-learn” seminars for preneed sales (whether in-house or through a third party), they had to either pause all seminars or transition to virtual seminars. Video conferencing, of course, has also proved itself in- dispensable for communicating with staff when in-per- son meetings are too risky. Additionally, cloud-based project management tools such as Trello let funeral direc- tors and other funeral pros manage the disposition of cas- es more efficiently, without needing to track everything on an old-fashioned physical whiteboard. Now, I’ve learned enough about the industry in recent years to know that many funeral homes haven’t adopted all of these practices during the health crisis. Depending on their size and location, some might not have adopted any of them. For some of you reading this article, that means you. Zoom. As I’m sure you know, a number of security con- cerns about Zoom were raised shortly after the COVID lockdowns went into effect. Some nefarious hackers have used auto-generated “meeting finders” to randomly find unprotected meetings and troll them with inappropriate content—a practice known as “Zoombombing.” That’s certainly worrisome, but the truth is that the number of affected meetings is very small. The important thing is to keep your meeting ID private and to ensure it’s password protected. So make sure all of your meetings are automatically pro- tected. Go to the “Meetings” tab, click the “Edit” button under your personal meeting ID, check “Require meet- ing password,” and put in a password to. It’s also a good idea to update your password regularly and be careful with whom you share it. Zoom is incredibly cheap (it even has a robust free version), and it’s by far the most user-friendly of the main video con- ferencing tools, so I continue to strongly recommend it. (Note: My firm has no promotional agreement with Zoom, Trello, or any of the tools mentioned in this ar- ticle. I just recommend them because they’re the best op- tions for funeral pros.) Of course, the effects from the coronavirus go far be- yond business. This health crisis has cost many Americans their lives, and for those who contracted COVID-19 and recovered, some will have lasting health impacts from the virus, including quite serious ones. The coronavirus has had an unprecedented effect the economy, on personal life, on virtually everything we do. How it’s affected the business of burial and cremation, and that of celebrating people’s lives, is just a small por- tion of that. However, for everyone who makes a living in this industry, it’s an absolutely critical portion. When I say that the business lessons we’ve learned from COVID will last a lifetime, I mean exactly that. The digital age is now here in full force. In 15 or 20 years, we likely won’t still be using the same digital tools as we are now, but we’ll definitely be using digital tools—there’s no going back. Virtually no business, no matter how niche or small, is immune to the need to evolve into a more digital process. We’re all learning a lot of lessons due to this health crisis. Learning to adapt and evolve is one of the most impor- tant lessons of all. Welton Hong is the founder of Ring Ring Marketing ® (www.fu- neralhomeprofits.com) and the author of Making Your Phone Ring for Funeral Homes , 2019 Edition. NFDA and ICCFA support Deathcare Workers’ inclusion as Essential Employees WASHINGTON,DC— COVID-19 has pushed government officials to the extreme as they attempt to handle an unprecedent- ed national crisis. New laws and orders have been rapidly written and put in place, rang- ing from limiting the size of crowds to pro- viding emergency stimulus payments to de- fining essential businesses. Both the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) and the Interna- tional Cemetery, Cremation, and Funer- al Association (ICCFA) have recognized the importance of mortuary employees and have requested that all orders should include deathcare professionals in the list of essen- tial employees required to keep this country functioning during this pandemic. At the urging of NFDA, the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cyberse- curity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued updated Coronavirus Guid- ance for America which named mortuary workers as “critical infrastructure workers.” This announcement highlights the impor- tance of funeral directors and other work- ers in deathcare as the country navigates the consequences of COVID-19. For the past ten years, NFDA has stood by mortuary workers, ensuring that they are considered critical infrastructure workers in any instance involving mass-fatalities. As the coronavirus began to spread across the globe and onto American soil, NFDA be- gan reaching out to federal officials in order to establish this classification for deathcare workers across the country. The guidance defines mortuary workers as those “performing mortuary services, in- cluding funeral homes, crematoriums, and cemetery workers” in addition to workers who “coordinate with other organizations to ensure the proper recovery, handling, iden- tification, transportation, tracking, storage, and disposal of human remains and person- al effects; certify cause of death; and facili- tate access to mental/behavioral health ser- vices to the family members, responders, and survivors of an incident.” By this defini- tion, anyone working in deathcare is includ- ed and considered essential during this crisis. The CSIA guidance not only defines crit- ical infrastructure workers, but also states that they are exempt from shelter-in-place mandates. According to the guidance, essen- tial workers have priority access to person- al protective equipment (PPE), and upon the development of a COVID-19 vaccine, they would take precedence to non-essential workers. It does not, however, give priority access to a vaccine. NFDA is planning on contacting DHS regarding prioritizing mor- tuary workers once a COVID-19 vaccine is available. “The ability of funeral professionals to safely carry out their duties during a mass- fatality incident is paramount. We were very pleased to see NFDA’s efforts pay off when the federal government recognizedmortuary workers as critical to the COVID-19 pan- demic response,” said NFDA CEO Chris- tine Pepper , CAE. “The role that funeral directors and cemetery and crematory work- ers are playing during the COVID-19 pan- demic is critical. While their work may be overlooked, they are truly on the front lines in helping to care for pandemic victims and grieving families.” When the COVID-19 outbreak spread to the United States and government agencies began issuing orders in regards to essential services, ICCFA took action on behalf of its members and the entire deathcare profes- sion. Initially, COVID-19 orders identified health care operations as well as other busi- nesses related to general health and essential infrastructure as critical and stated that they were to remain open during the shelter-in- place period. ICCFA sent letters to a variety of federal, state, and local agencies to ensure inclusion in the essential category for death- care professionals. ICCFA suggested that the order listing essential businesses should include death- care professionals such as “licensed funeral homes, crematories, cemeteries, as well as all suppliers of funeral products to funeral ser- vice providers, which provide essential ser- vices that are critical to the health, safety and sanitation of the community.” The organization also added their sup- port in a letter sent to the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services from the deathcare association community which re- quested that deathcare be designated as an essential service. The proper identification of mortuary workers will give them priority access to PPEs and exempt them from mandatory business closures and any state or federal lock downs or shelter-in-place orders. It will also ensure that deathcare workers are listed as top-tier of essential services so that they will receive a COVID-19 vaccine once it be- comes available. ICCFA President Jay Dodds endorsed the creation of a Disaster Management Com- mittee in response to the coronavirus pan- demic. The committee will consist of a multi-disciplinary team selected for their specific areas of expertise who will provide guidance in response to national disasters that affect ICCFA members, their employ- ees, and their businesses in addition to the families they serve. Both NFDA and ICCFA are working to support deathcare professionals in any way they can. They are speaking out dur- ing this crisis to make sure that the indus- try is categorized as essential and funer- al homes, crematories, and cemeteries are protected and available to support local citizens during the COVID-19 pandem- ic. Updated information can be found at https://www.nfda.org/covid-19 and https://iccfa.com/covid-19/ .