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The top 4 benefits of an online planning tool

Passare - March 2025 - Blog - The top 4 benefits of an online planning tool

If you’re like most funeral directors, you want to serve families with the best preneed, at-need, and aftercare experiences.

And with your at-need service, you need ways to enhance the experience for families and make planning a funeral as stress-free as possible.

But this can become difficult when a family lives far away or wants to collaborate with many people. 

In these situations, funeral directors have to get creative. That usually involves sending emails back and forth, writing post-it notes, or playing phone tag with families to work out service details and write the obituary. All of this makes funeral directors feel overwhelmed and wanting a more efficient way to collaborate with families from anywhere.

Enter online at-need planning software.

Not only does it keep you organized, but it helps you and your families plan a meaningful service and communicate better.

Here are 4 benefits of using this software in your funeral home.

#1: Help families plan anytime, anywhere

 

In our recent report on funeral consumers, families expressed that they expect 12.7 days to plan a funeral.

Many funeral directors plan funerals quickly, which can cause more stress to a family.

The fact is, families need time to plan important details and need to consult with other family members to do so.

You can help them plan from anywhere with online planning software! 

With the option for online planning, you can:

  • Grant the freedom to plan from anywhere! Some families are more comfortable planning from the couch in the comfort of their own home. With an online planning tool, you can serve these families better.

  • Offer more flexibility. Families no longer have to wait days (or weeks) to start planning in person. With an online tool, families can start gathering details and planning right away!

  • Give them more time to plan. You no longer have to worry if something gets missed or overlooked at the arrangement conference. Families can help you plan online before, during, and after the meeting to make sure no details get missed.

Collaborating with families online will make the arrangement conference less stressful. Not to mention, you will have time to be more intentional with personalization and truly caring for the family.

Plus, it gives you a way to stay connected to your families throughout the entire planning process.

>>>>>>Check out our online planning platform, Planning Center. 👏

 

#2: Share price information ahead of time

 

You have a lot to offer families, from great service to high-quality merchandise. But you never want a family to feel blindsided by the final bill from your funeral home.

That’s why it’s important to provide full transparency and make your services and merchandise (including prices!) accessible outside the arrangement conference.

Merchandise in Passare's Planning Center (our online planning platform) allows you to do that!

Here are some benefits of this feature:

  • Families can browse your merchandise online and pin their favorites! When families pin their favorite merchandise in Planning Center, it will help you make personalized recommendations for each family.

  • Pricing conversations will be less uncomfortable. Families may have an idea of the casket or flowers they want, but they might not know the cost. By looking through your price list in the Planning Center, families can get an idea of which merchandise fits within their budget before making a selection in the arrangement conference.

Previewing merchandise allows you and your families to feel more prepared for the arrangement conference, collaborate on a new level, and make the best selections for the service.

 

#3: Lower stress and anxiety at the arrangement conference

“If I were put in charge to arrange a funeral, I’d have no idea what to do.”

 

In the same consumer study mentioned earlier, results found that 36% of respondents strongly agreed or somewhat agreed with this statement.

Many individuals have never planned a funeral before and can easily get overwhelmed by the number of important decisions they have to make in a short amount of time.

This stress and anxiety make each decision feel difficult.

An online planning tool can help you create a stress-free planning process for families.  

Plus, getting some of the planning work done ahead of time gives the family more headspace to recount precious memories that you can use to help them create the most personalized service.

 

#4. Improve communication with families and your team

 

It takes a village to create a meaningful service.

From the first call to arrangements and services, a lot of details get passed around between your team and families. That’s why communication is more important than ever. An online planning tool can help keep all those details in one place!

With Planning Center in Passare, you can use many features with your team and families to ensure constant communication. 👇

Notes

Keeping your entire team on the same page when planning a funeral is a challenge.

That’s why you need a reliable way for your team to communicate all details and updates! Improving team communication makes for easier collaboration, less frustration, and ultimately more confidence and accuracy when communicating information back to your families.

Passare Notes lets your team effectively communicate all the details so nothing slips through the cracks.

Messages

Having a lot of family members wanting to contribute to planning a funeral is a good problem to have (the more the merrier, right?).

But you need a central place to communicate with families that's easy for everyone (including you)!

That’s where Planning Center Messages in Passare can help you organize conversations with even the largest groups. With it, you can keep conversations in one platform (Passare), which makes it easy to review past decisions. Plus, families can easily message you with a question whenever they need to.

It's a win-win for everyone involved!

 

Provide the best at-need experience to your families with Planning Center

 

The better experience a family has in creating an at-need funeral plan, the more likely they are to focus on having a healing and meaningful funeral service. And an online planning tool, like Passare’s Planning Center, can help you do just that!

Passare’s Planning Center allows you and your families to work together in real time on the obituary, service details, and vitals, all while staying connected throughout the entire planning process.

Wondering how to introduce an online planning tool to your families?

No problem! We have put together 3 different scripts inspired by our customers' most successful methods when inviting families to collaborate online in Passare’s Planning Center.

 

Ready to improve your collaboration with families?

 

It starts with seeing all that Passare has to offer. Get a demo today!