How to Find an Honest Funeral Home
With several options throughout the four-state area, it is not easy to hunt for a perfect funeral home while coping with the overwhelming stress of losing a loved one. Despite all the grief, you need to find a funeral home that offers all the services you want and hosts a caring and compassionate staff you are comfortable working with.
At first glance, funeral homes seem pretty much alike, but they differ significantly in terms of the services they offer.
Here are the tips you should bear in mind while searching for a perfect funeral home.
- Jot Down the Services You Need
First things first, during funeral planning, determine the services you need such as a burial or cremation, embalming or not, viewing services or not, and burial site or memorial location. If the loved one has asked for any special final services to personalize the event, include that in your list.
-Derfelt Funeral Homes specializes in traditional funerals followed by burial or cremation, graveside services, memorial services, celebrations of life, personalization, direct cremation, special requests, headstone and monument design, urn personalization, and many other industry specific items. We have owned and operated our own crematory facility since 2014 on-site at Derfelt’s Baxter Chapel.
- Trust the Experiences of Others.
From scouring the internet and online directories to getting recommendations from friends and family, narrow your list down to a few funeral homes in your area that meet your requirements.
The people who have had these experiences can better guide you about which funeral home you should contact, and maybe even a specific funeral director by name. You can easily find funeral home reviews on customer review sites which are helpful resources to filter out the available options.
-Derfelt Funeral Homes is extremely thankful for our clients who have shared their experiences on many online platforms. Look at our reviews on Google, Facebook, and other providers to get a feel for our level of client satisfaction.
- Visit the Funeral Home in Person
While it’s better to take all the necessary details on a call, try to visit the funeral home in person before making your choice. Ask as many questions as you want to evaluate how they deal with clients.
The staff should be professional, empathetic, respectful, and display excellence because you will need emotional support throughout the process. The funeral director must answer all your questions and address all your concerns. It will help narrow down your search list.
-Derfelt Funeral Homes welcomes community members into our facilities every day. We would be happy to give you a tour of our selection rooms, common areas, and chapel facilities.
- Ask Your Questions
You would be better off with a reputable and experienced funeral home. While meeting them, find out what long term resources they offer? What extra can they do for the bereaved family? How do they respond to your special requests?
Apart from online reviews, these little things determine how much they know their area of expertise. Will they be able to offer you a level of care and service that meets or exceeds the funeral package you wish to choose?
-Derfelt Funeral Homes offers a wide range of practical after care services. With our online platform, we can guide you through the process of finding life insurance benefits and unclaimed property, closing and converting social media accounts, forwarding mail, cancelling phone service and online accounts, contacting Social Security, and freezing your loved one’s credit. Find more about these resources here: Aftercare Resources
We also have links on our website to sign up for daily Griefwords, access to a large library of grief resources for adults and children alike, as well as information for veterans benefits and COVID-19 reimbursement.
- Evaluate How Honest and Compassionate They Are
Request the funeral home to provide the price list of every product or service. The law makes it mandatory for them to share the price of every single item in writing including the taxes in person. Very few funeral homes take the extra step of listing their prices in plain site on their website. Pay attention to the visibility of prices to ensure honesty. Also, make sure the staff is transparent with you while discussing various funeral packages.
-Derfelt Funeral Homes is proud to be one of the few local funeral homes that has our entire price list in plain view on our website. Not only can you receive it in person as the law requires, but you can access it at this link any time you choose: General Price List. If you have any questions about our General Price List, any of our funeral directors would be happy to answer your questions.
- How They Respond to Special Requests
Make sure that the funeral home you intend to choose has the capacity and resources to fulfill your needs. Not every funeral home is specialized in carrying out special requests. If you want to personalize services, confirm that the funeral home can accommodate them.
-Although it would be inappropriate to share specific details of past events, we can say that we have hosted funeral events in a number of “different” locations including rodeo grounds, local parks, private estates, and of course nearly every local church and community building. We make it a point to ask “What can we do to make this service unique?” because we firmly believe that every life represents a unique creation by God and deserves a ceremony that expresses individuality.
- A Positive Reputation and Dedicated Staff
Knowing that the staff has a reputation for providing quality service will leave you in a much better position than entrusting your deceased loved one to the hands of a subpar funeral director.
The staff and employees should be caring and honest rather than apathetic and discourteous. Planning a funeral is not an easy task, and having a committed team of funeral home staff at your side can help ease the burden of the process. A good funeral home can assist you with any extensive paperwork.
-The staff at Derfelt Funeral Homes are our greatest asset. With a combined staff experience of over 100 years, we have helped our clients through hundreds of detailed circumstances, and we use that expertise to assist you by removing the burden of extensive paperwork. Among our staff, we have funeral directors and embalmers licensed in Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, licensed crematory operators, preneed counselors, two APFSP Certified Funeral Service Practitioners (What is CFSP?), and an NFDA Certified Preplanning Consultant (What is CPC?).
- Check Out the Website
This may be something that you have already done, but reviewing a funeral home’s website could be a great way to find out how professional and reliable they are—is the website up-to-date? Is there credible information readily available? All of these can give you cues on whether a particular funeral home is a good choice for you.
-Our website is constantly updated with new obituaries, resources, staff biographies, public announcements, and pricing information. We do our best to stay at the front end of technological advancement, not only with our online presence, but also with the way we can incorporate the use of technology into your ceremonies.
- How Long Have They Been in Business?
While it would be unfair to say that newer funeral homes are not providing good services, the length of time one has been in business is a legitimate way to gauge trust. Most reputable funeral homes have been operating for decades and have a strong, recognizable presence in their communities.
-Derfelt Funeral Home has been in continuous operation at our Galena, KS location since March of 1948 and has always been owned and operated by the Derfelt Family. We have expanded our operation twice in our history– to Baxter Springs, KS in 1977, and to Columbus and Oswego, KS in May of 2011. In our nearly 75 years of work in the deathcare profession, we cannot thank our communities enough for trusting our family with your family for generations past and generations to come.