By zack
The “Age of the iPad” has arrived, and it started with a bang. Over 300,000 iPads were sold by the end of the first day, and the impressive debut even drove up Best Buy’s stock significantly.
What’s the big deal?
The iPad has the potential to revolutionize computing and business like few innovations have since the personal computer itself. For an industry already being transformed by the web, the funeral industry stands to be shaken up even further by Apple’s new device. It’s not so much that the iPad has any single killer feature that will turn the funeral industry on its head. Instead, the iPad’s extreme portability and ease of use will serve as a litmus test of funeral directors’ internet strategy.
In short, the iPad will accelerate the pace at which all operations become web-based. The iPad will bifurcate the funeral industry: those who can run their business on an iPad will see tremendous success, and those who can’t will be overtaken.
Call it “The iPad Test.”
If you pass, you’ve set yourself up for a profitable future. If you fail, you may not have a future in this industry at all. It’s really that simple.
Why Web-based?
The funeral industry has been rapidly transforming from an old-fashioned bricks & mortar operation to a web-based e-commerce play. Rather than relying on face-to-face meetings with funeral directors to build trust, customers are increasingly expecting the ability to make decisions and preparations from the comfort of their own home.
Some funeral directors see this as a threat to their business. Others see it as an opportunity. However, history shows us that in every industry transformed by the web, the businesses that most quickly embrace the change reap the greatest rewards.
The faster a funeral director can move his or her operations completely online, the more success and revenues they will see.
Enter iPad
The iPad is a game changing device. It represents a new type of device, built from the ground up to be easy to use and intuitive. In fact, it’s got only 1 button! Gone are the keyboard, mouse, file system, folders, configuration, and installation headaches. Instead, you can say hello to touchscreen, gestures, one-click access to the internet and a host of single-purpose applications.
What this means is that even your grandma can pick up and interactive with an iPad for the first time. And while your grandma may not buy one herself, you can easily bring one to her and utilize the AT&T cellular network for instant access to the internet.
Give that last paragraph another thought, and you’ll quickly understand how transformational this device will be to the funeral industry.
iPad for Funeral Directors
With the right web-based software, Funeral Directors can even run their entire operations from the iPad!
As a funeral director, imagine this scenario:
After someone passes away, you use the iPad to enter that person’s information into your web-based case management software. The deceased’s obituary is automatically published to your website, with a rich online tribute generated on the spot and distributed to a Search Engine Optimized directory as well as to Facebook and Twitter. You drive to meet with the family for service preparations. With the iPad, the family can navigate through your point of sale kiosk, choosing the products and services they’d like from any vendor you’ve chosen to sell for. They can even choose and design a monument on the spot, seeing the updated price of their selections dynamically, then signing and submitting the order with no hassle whatsoever. Then finish the process knowing exactly what they will get and for what price.
Because you handed them the iPad for their selections, the customer felt in charge of the process and as a result, they felt comfortable and confident with their purchases. Since all purchases were made on the spot, there was no opportunity for you to lose the sale to your competition. The customer is happy with the personalization and ease of use, and you are happy with the fast sale and satisfied customer.
The Future is Now
The best part about the above scenario is that it’s available today!
Funeral Innovations is the first and only company in the industry that enables you to run your entire operations online from an iPad. Using our cutting edge, web-based software, you can the following from anywhere at any time using just an iPad:
- Create and manage richly interactive online obituaries and tributes
- Distribute your obituaries through the latest social networking distribution channels
- Get high search engine placement of your obituaries quickly
- Provide point of sale selection of products and services to your customers
- Design and sell monuments with real-time pricing – without any hassle or prior experience!
Only with Funeral Innovations can you pass The iPad Test today.
Want a FREE iPad?
We’re so confident in this vision that we’re going to put our money where are mouth is. With the upcoming, end of April release of our new FI Open Kiosk, we’re giving the first 20 customers a FREE iPad. That’s right, be among the first funeral directors to start running your business from an iPad, free when you come on board with our cutting edge solutions.
With the FI Open Kiosk, you can take advantage of an iPad-enabled point of sale solution that lets you generate increased revenue by selling products online from multiple vendors.
We’ll be announcing the full details of this promotion later in the week, so check back or follow us on Twitter for more information.
What’s Next?
We strongly believe that the iPad is ushering in a new era of funeral software. We’re ecstatic to be on the cutting edge of this exciting trend, but we know that there’s a lot of work to be done to help educate funeral directors on how to leverage this new technology. We will be aggressively leading this effort and ensuring that our current and future customers take full advantage of this tremendous opportunity.
The first funeral directors to recognize this paradigm shift and act on it will be the ones who benefit most.
To that end, we’ll continue to educate with tips and tutorials on this blog, describing how to fully benefit from the iPad and the web.
We’ll be speaking about these opportunities at the OGR National Conference later this month, and we’ll let you gain hands on experience using an iPad to manage your business. So make sure to seek us out, and ask to try the iPad!
So what do you think about the iPad and how do you feel it will change the funeral industry?
