The hardest call anyone makes. It should not reach a machine.
A first call comes from someone who has just been bereaved, often at night, usually having never made this call before. They do not know what you need to be told. What they need is for a calm voice to answer, ask the few things that decide what happens next, and say that a director is being reached.
Hear it before you read another word. Dial (314) 784-8835. It is an A.I. voice, it answers for several kinds of business, and it does not assume yours — say “I run a funeral home” and it will take the call the way your front desk would, including the one that cannot wait until the morning. Or tell it what a typical call sounds like for you and let it answer that. The demo has no calendar or text line behind it, so it takes the job and hands it on; yours books and confirms.
The call you are not there for.
It is 03:20. A daughter is calling from her mother's house. Her mother died an hour ago and she does not know what she is supposed to do, or who is supposed to come, or whether she should have called somebody else first. The next few minutes are the whole impression your firm will ever make on her — and where her mother is right now decides what you can actually do tonight.
Three calls a funeral home gets, and what happens to them.
What it gets out of the caller.
- 01
Where the person is now — at home, in hospital, or in a care facility. Everything about what can happen tonight follows from this one answer
- 02
Whether the death was expected and under hospice care, or unexpected. An unexpected death is not the firm's to act on until it has been released, and a caller told otherwise at three in the morning will remember it
- 03
Whether anyone has attended yet — hospice, a doctor, the paramedics — in the caller's own words rather than as a tick box
- 04
The caller's name, their relationship to the person, and a number that will be answered. Taken early, because it is the one thing that lets you call them back if the line drops
- 05
Whether there is a pre-arrangement with your firm, which changes the first conversation completely and is usually volunteered if asked
Why a general answering service loses this call.
- 01
It opens with “how can I help you today?”
Somebody whose mother died an hour ago has to answer that question before they can say the only sentence they called to say. The greeting on a first call is not a small thing and it is not a place for the standard one. Nor is hold music, a menu, or being asked to repeat a name into a machine.
- 02
It takes a message instead of asking where the person is.
A message saying somebody has died and a number to call back means the director rings at four in the morning to ask the questions that could have been asked while the family was already on the phone. Where the person is, and whether anyone has attended, decides whether tonight involves a collection or a conversation.
- 03
It promises a time.
When a death is unexpected and the emergency services are present, the firm cannot collect until it is released, and nobody on a phone line can say when that will be. A service that reassures by inventing a time creates a broken promise on the worst night of somebody's life.
- 04
It cannot tell a first call from a florist.
The same number takes deliveries, price enquiries, a nurse at the end of a shift and the call you must never miss. Grading those by which came in first is what a queue does. The first call goes through; the florist can be told you will ring back, and be told it kindly.
What it costs.
There is no published price yet. The first five businesses run it free for thirty days, with no card; before day thirty we tell you the monthly price, and you decide whether to keep it.
Questions funeral homes ask.
Does it sound like a machine on a first call?
It is an A.I. voice and it does not pretend otherwise if asked. What it does is answer in under two seconds at any hour, without hold music or a menu, and open by acknowledging what has happened rather than asking how it can help. You can hear it before you decide: the number is on this page.
What does it actually ask on a first call?
Where the person is now, whether the death was expected and under hospice or unexpected, whether anyone has attended yet, and the caller's name, relationship and number. Nothing else is asked at three in the morning. Those answers are what decide whether tonight involves a collection, and they are the ones a director otherwise has to ring back for.
Will it tell a family when we can collect?
No, deliberately. On an unexpected death the firm cannot act until it is released, and a phone line is in no position to say when that will be. It says a director is being reached and takes the details so the family is called rather than left to call again.
Can it reach our director on-call rather than leave a message?
Yes. A first call is transferred to the number you set. Be aware of what that transfer is: it dials and hands the call over, so it cannot report who picked up. If nobody answers, what you get is the call and its details in writing, not a claim that it connected.
Does it handle the calls that are not first calls?
Those are most of the volume — arrangements, deliveries, price enquiries, staff. They are taken and passed on without waking anybody. The whole point of separating them is that a first call at three in the morning is never third in a queue.
Find out what your phone is costing you.
The audit is free, it runs on your own numbers, and it takes one short call.