The way I see it, funeral directors have an obligation to serve the community in which they are located. I consider myself a member of the Monticello community, even though I don’t live there at the present.
However, this being my hometown, and even though this funeral home handled my father's and grandmother’s funerals in years past, Mr. Owner refused to do business with me because I now live in Minnesota. I was attempting to arrange a pre-need payment plan for a loved one still living in Monticello, and I wasted precious days running budget numbers, looking over information, and talking to his assistant/employee. I had the deposit ready to send via cashier’s check, and then I was turned down cold because I could not drop another several thousand dollars on plane tickets, fly down there at the drop of a hat, and meet with The Owner who "prizes the personal connection" and insists on meeting family members and "getting to know them" before authorizing a prepaid plan.
I was told that The Owner “treasures the traditional approach” and has “always been very uncomfortable entering the online arena.”
As for him “treasuring the traditional approach,” that is not my problem. This is NOT about HIM. Given his profession, I am very surprised that he is unaware of that. As for him being “uncomfortable” with online business, it's 2022 already, and it is not my job to cater to his comfort level. He has that exactly backward.
I was also told they do not have the capacity to do an online contract. I call BS on that. They’re the biggest funeral home in the area. Write up a contract, scan it into a computer, and email it to me. I will print it out, sign it, and mail the hard copy back with a cashier’s check. Or just mail me the hard copy, I’ll sign it, and mail it back with payment.
Someone needs to tell him to leave his Norman Rockwell fantasy world behind and join the real world, where people don’t always live in the same small town from the cradle to the grave and often have no choice but to do things online/by mail, tradition be damned. He may not think that’s “ideal” but that’s reality.
This insistence that we meet in person and let him “get to know me” is absolutely unnecessary, unless; A) he wants to make sure that I am a “suitable” client for his services, or B) he wants to pressure me into something more expensive and unaffordable by putting me into a stressful situation with travel expenses I cannot afford, or C) forcing me to wait until my hour of need, when I will HAVE to be in Monticello, in an emotional state, without the leisure of time to consider various options and cost factors.
In sum, meeting me has nothing to do with arranging a simple pre-payment plan. I found his statement of "wanting to get to know me" creepy, unprofessional, intrusive, patently absurd, unreasonable given my circumstances, even bordering on unethical. I am not in this situation to make friends. I simply wanted to arrange a pre-paid service. Period. End of story.
I must now start this entire process over again with another funeral home, and may even have to look out of town to find another facility, with added expenses for funeral transportation and distance.
Must be nice if business is so good you can afford to stick to an absurd, outdated business model and turn away potential clients just because you can't look them over first.
Lynette Norris Veit
Minnesota City, MN