EPISODE 9

Part 1: Online Reviews | The Difference Between Winning or Losing Calls for Funeral Homes

Think about online reviews like a bunch of people standing in front of your funeral home holding up signs for people to see as they drive by. The signs declare how awesome you are or how poorly you treat customers. The signs are invitations or warnings.

When consumers Google your name, or "funeral home near me," these metaphorical signs are displayed like people on a picket line. They're hard to miss.

Would you stop at a business if every sign being held up was negative? Would you feel confident if every sign was positive? What if there were lots of positive signs and one negative one way in the back? Would that one even matter?

On this episode, learn why reviews are critical to having a successful funeral home today.

1.) Why online reviews matter even if a family has been recommended to you.
2.) Why Yelp matters even if you believe people in your market don't use it.
3.) How reviews affect your search ranking.

Show Notes & Resources

• Ellery and Welton introduce the plan for this three-part series [and note the extreme measures they undertook to get haircuts] (0:00)
• Reviews are important even if the consumer is already somewhat familiar with you, or was referred to you (2:41)
• There are more undecided families now, and reviews are now more trusted by some consumers than word of mouth (6:36)
• Consumers are looking for both quality and quantity, and they're also looking for recent reviews (8:40)
• Reviews factor into your funeral home's search ranking and other SEO factors (9:29)
• They level the playing field for smaller firms to compete against larger ones (11:36)
• Reviews also provide useful feedback to owners and let consumers search for specific aspects of service (12:43)
• Brief preview of next week's episode on dealing with negative reviews (14:42)