Co-operative Funeralcare

Indy undertakers on the counter-attack

12 October 2010
Charles
8 Comments
Categories: Co-operative Funeralcare, Dignity, family funeral directors, funeral cost, funeral directors, Plan your own funeral, pre-need plans, SAIF

Saif’s  IPSOS-Mori price comparison survey published in February 2010 was dynamite. It showed that independents are generally cheaper than two big beasts of the industry, Co-operative Funeralcare and Dignity. Had Saif got the message out to the funeral-buying public it would have hit the big beasts’ bottom line bigtime.

But the message never got out, not in a big way – an eyebrow-raising non-occurrence considering the price obsession of British funeral consumers. Saif didn’t bang the drum and blow the trumpet. A number of its members are cross about this. All that money to create a weapon of mass destruction only for it to hastily hidden under a bushel. What a waste, they said.

Is Saif dumb or did it have its tongue cut out? The story cannot be told for fear of litigation. There was a rumour swirling that one of the big beasts put pressure on Saif’s suppliers to take sides: either you ditch your indies or we’ll ditch you. I don’t think we can attach any credence to that.

The advance of the clunking conglomerates has been inexorable. They have circumvented the nobody-does-it-better claim of the independents and fought the war instead on the unpropitious battleground of financial planning, employing expert messagemakers to seduce consumers with sweet-talk about empowerment. As a result, the future now belongs to the big beasts: they’ve got the paid-up pre-need plans to prove it. It’s been a strategic masterstroke. Who wants today’s car, phone, anything tomorrow? No, we want the upgrade, next generation, as-yet-undreamt of. And yet… the funeral planners have conquered obsolescence . Hats off!

How to reverse this? By playing the big beasts at their own game? Golden Charter is fighting the good fight pluckily enough, but is beginning to look like the British army in Basra. In any case, there are far, far better ways of making provision for funeral expenses, ways which do not disempower those left behind.

No. The way forward is to get back onto the battleground of value for money, quality assurance and individuality. At a time like death people want to be looked after by a brilliant boutique business, not Funerals R Us. It ought to be easy enough.

It will need concerted action, though. Ay, there’s the rub.

So it’s really good to see a togetherness initiative come out of last week’s discussion of the new Co-op website MyLocalFuneralDirector. It was sparked by Nick Armstrong. He spotted that the Co-op had failed to buy mylocalfuneralservice.co.uk and yourlocalfuneralservice.co.uk.

“I’ll give you a guess who has just bought them. I’ll get a list of independent funeral directors on there as soon as I work out how to do it. Ill post back on here when I have a template up and running.:-) … It won’t be a quick thing as I want to get it right but it will be honest that’s for certain! If anyone has any ideas on compiling the database easily please let me know.”

His challenge was taken up by Andrew Hickson:

“Nick, here’s an idea off the top of my head. Follow it up, ignore it, change or work on it, I shan’t be offended by any of them!

It seems that there’s a fair bit of animosity and dislike of the website that is being discussed here, so, how about we, ourselves, research and compile a database? By this, I mean every reader and follower of this blog, each contributing what he or she knows.

I’d be surprised if between us we weren’t pretty well-informed of the true identities of a huge number of companies.

An immense task, and one which would require every contributor to be really focussed. But, very exciting, and think of the satisfaction when it was complete.

I’d be happy to help out wherever I could, so do let me know your thoughts!

This could be big if we all made it so … the start of a collaboration of FD’s willing to challenge the boundaries of the truth with which we all contend on a daily basis?”

Nick has responded:

“Hi Kingfisher. I’m game. Any help on content etc would be appreciated as well as any help with compiling a database. Thinking of a searchable google map with premises photos and branch info might be a good start. Bit more interactive than a list.

I’ve been doing one on my website with local churches, cemeteries etc. http://tinyurl.com/2v54rzz

I’m happy to build and host the site(s) and any info would be greatly appreciated.”

So there we are then. The go-to man is Nick: office@funeralhelp.co.uk.

Let’s make common cause!

Cunning stunt

7 October 2010
Charles
22 Comments
Categories: Co-operative Funeralcare

A consumers’ co-operative whose aim is to enable ordinary working people to buy things they would not otherwise be able to afford; one which  exists to provide a service for its members rather than generate profits for shareholders. A good thing, yes? It gets better. This consumers’ co-op also has an altruistic, ethical agenda for social change.

You’d think any such enterprise would be incredibly proud of itself. Dammit, it ought to be a national treasure.

So where did it all go so wrong for Co-operative Funeralcare?

And here’s the big question: What’s the point of it?

Let’s not get started, we’ll still be at it come Christmas. Let’s just look at Funeralcare’s new marketing trick for luring funeral consumers into its lair.

Mylocalfuneraldirector.co.uk

It looks like quite a helpful website for anyone planning a funeral and looking for a funeral director. It looks and reads like an (indifferent) independent consumer cheap online pharmacy without prescription resource.

Until you type your town into the Find Your local Funeral Director box.

Only a deeply damaged brand behaves like this.

Domain name:
         mylocalfuneraldirector.co.uk

     Registrant:
         The Co-operative Group

     Registrant type:
         UK Industrial/Provident Registered Company, (Company number: IP0525R)

     Registrant's address:
         9th Floor
         New Century House
         Corporation Street
         Manchester
         Greater Manchester
         M60 4ES
         United Kingdom

The only way round is through

6 October 2010
Charles
10 Comments
Categories: Attitudes to death, bereavement, Co-operative Funeralcare, Dead people's rights, Death; Good death, funeral directors, Plan your own funeral

Once upon a time people dreaded dying. They couldn’t be sure it would be painless. They dreaded being dead, too. Some feared the unknown. Others lamented the end of their existence.

A very few people had no fear whatever of being dead because they trusted in a joy-drenched afterlife. But even these people dreaded dying.

Death was a big deal.

In those days, people affected by the death of someone were called ‘the bereaved’. They experienced grief. Even people who were certain that their dead person had gone to paradise were sad because they missed them. So funerals were sad occasions. There was no way round this. It was because everyone was sad.

Because dying could be such a horrible thing, people didn’t talk about it. When they were dead, this made life difficult for everyone. The undertaker would gently say to the bereaved, “What do you want to do?” and the bereaved would reply, “What she would have wanted.” The undertaker would gently ask, “What was it she wanted?” and the bereaved would reply, “We don’t know.”

The pre-need funeral plan people gazed sadly at their unsold pre-need funeral plans and said, “What hope for us when everyone’s in denial?”

People who know what’s best for people saw that what death needed was an image makeover. “It’s not so bad when you talk about it,” they said. And they had a point – up to a point. “It has been said,” they said, “that what we fear most about dying is the associated loss of control. By empowering patients to express their wishes, that control can be restored.” “Does it bollocks,” said the people with neurodegenerative diseases.

The pre-need funeral plan people proved, with smoke and mirrors, that grief can be bypassed by partying. And because no one wants anyone to be sad when they die, everyone flocked to buy their very own pre-need, knees-up party plan.

So now when relicts go to the undertaker, the undertaker says, “Hello.” And the relicts say, “What’s next?” And the undertaker says, “This, this is what’s next. This is what you’ll do, this is what you’ll wear, this is what you’ll listen to, this is how you’ll feel. It’s all laid down and it’s all paid up.”

And the relicts say, “Sorry, we feel too sad, we miss her.” Or, “Are you joking, mate? We couldn’t stand him.”

And Death says, “Right. You’ll do it my way.”

Cheap boos

13 September 2010
Charles
No comments
Categories: Co-operative Funeralcare, coffins, Dignity, family funeral directors, funeral directors, funeral trends

Real ale made by boutique brewers has at last begun to drive down sales of lager for the first time in half a century reports yesterday’s Observer.

Intriguingly, the Society of Independent Brewers (Siba) reports that while its 420 members enjoyed a combined sales rise of 4 per cent last year, its smallest and boutique-iest brewers saw sales rise by 8.5 per cent. Small is good, smallest is best.

More good news. More young people are supping the Right Stuff. Of 25-34 year olds, the number of those who have tasted real ale rose from 28 per cent to 50 per cent in the period 2008-10. What’s more, the number of women rose from 16 per cent to 32 per cent in the same period.

Says Julian Grocock of Siba: “A lot of our members are professional brewers who have worked for the big brewers and have now set up their own business. They are brewing all sorts of beers … There’s now a huge variety out there.”

You see where I’m coming from?

If the little guys can turn the tables on the big beasts in the brewing trade it gives us hope that the same thing can happen in the funeral industry. (I understand that for the word ‘beasts’ you might like to substitute something stronger.)

Speaking of whom, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) has named the Co-op Funeralcare coffin factory in Scotland as one of that country’s 99 dirtiest polluters. The story comes from the Sunday Herald, which describes the Co-op as “ethically conscious.” Hmph.

Good with grief

2 July 2010
Charles
4 Comments
Categories: Co-op, Co-operative Funeralcare

The banner on The Co-operative website proclaims that it is “good for everyone.” This accords with the long-held and passionate belief of all who toil at GFG HQ. To us, it’s a resounding statement of the obvious. We thought it was common knowledge.

It looks, though, as if Co-op’s marketing creatives have stalled in their efforts to transfer variants of this this little strapline to its manyother services. The Co-operative is “good with money” and it is “good with food” — but there it stops. They are probably beavering away, torturing their brains to generate “good with” straplines for travel, electricals, farms, cars and the rest. They are not “good for nothing”. They’ll come up with the mots justes, they will.

But it looks as if they need some help, and we think that the learned readership of this blog can rally round. Come on, everybody. “The Co-operative Funeralcare — good with ______________ .”

Suggestions in a comment box, please.

Sods’ law

16 June 2010
Charles
3 Comments
Categories: Co-op, Co-operative Funeralcare, funeral cost, National Association of Funeral Directors, SAIF, scandals

The funeral industry is right to be wary of those who claim to scrutinise it on behalf of consumers. After all, Jessica Mitford did much injury to the American funeral industry with an exposé which held it up to ridicule and focussed on price at the expense of value, and so was actually of very little use to consumers.

Jessica and her muckraking merrymaking aside, the UK funeral industry was always going to find scrutiny hard to bear both because it is unaccustomed to being held to account and because parts of it  suffer from a degree of complacency, self-importance, even, induced by customers who come through its doors, hold their hands up and say, “Tell me what to do.”

The Good Funeral Guide is guilty of having had some fun at the expense of the funeral industry. Any consumer advocate is going to be adversarial at times, and resolutely non-aligned, of course. And in the interests of readability, this blog aims not to be solemn but challenging, thought-provoking, tail-tweaking, humorous, deadly serious, thoughtful, silly and sometimes downright maverick. Entertaining. If it’s earnest you want, join me at the University of Bath on Saturday for the CDAS annual conference, entitled A Good Send-off. It won’t all be dull. Melissa Stewart of Native Woodland is speaking.

The approach I have taken to the funeral industry is to hold it to account from time to time and, where possible, engage in constructive dialogue. Where the trade bodies, NAFD and SAIF are concerned there has been very little of that. Emails are not replied to or even acknowledged. If this makes me, sometimes, waspish, who’s not to understand?

Yet my main thrust has been not to expose rottenness but to spotlight what’s best in funeral service, to sing the praises of the unsung heroes – to show consumers the way to the good guys so that they needn’t worry themselves about the bad and the awful. Those good guys are invariably independents.

For this reason I tend to be slow to respond to beastly goings on. That’s why, in the matter of Co-operative Funeralcare’s response to the SAIF IPSOS-Mori price comparison survey, I have been slow out of the blocks. I don’t get a bang out of giving Funeralcare a drubbing once in a while. It is a wearisome duty conducted on behalf of funeral consumers, socialism and the ideals of the Rochdale Pioneers.

But this latest business is as bad as it gets.

Even though the SAIF price comparison survey would seem to be 100% quantitative and 0% qualitative, even though it talks about what consumers need to know, SAIF has, along with at least three of its members, in the words of SAIF ceo Alun Tucker, “been issued with papers from the legal team representing The Co-operative Funeralcare. The documents relate to the wording in various items of SAIF literature and the content of some advertisements that members have placed in their local press. I will not comment further at this stage, as we have placed the papers in the hands of solicitors for a response to Funeralcare’s claims.”

I think we all know exactly what we reckon to that. There is no reason to overexcite Co-op lawyers by putting our thoughts into words. Justice is only very, very distantly related to the Law. They hardly ever see each other, never at funerals.

There’s worse. There are allegations from others in the industry that SAIF-affiliated suppliers of merchandise and services are coming under pressure to think carefully about who they do business with – a threat to the viability of SAIF as a trade body. Who is applying this pressure? And, as a writer to SAIF Insight, the trade body’s magazine, says, what if all this were to come into the public domain?

Well, it is in the public domain. And we reckon we know what it’s all about, don’t we? The funeral industry is not a hermetically sealed world like the illegal drugs trade. This is a matter which belongs to wider society; it needs to be aired; it is of material interest to all funeral consumers, the very people the funeral industry and the Good Funeral Guide together seek to serve.

It is because we share this common purpose that I believe we should talk to each other. We won’t always agree, but that’s not the point. So I hope I shall hear soon from spokespeople at SAIF and the NAFD.

My sincere thanks to all those of you who have contacted me with information and told me what you think. Where do we go from here?

If you want to leave a comment, please be very, very careful how you word it.

Co-op lawyers please note: I signed my house over to my wife when I cancelled my smile bank account. I am penniless. (It’s true, too, but I’m throwing it in also for readers who are members of the NAFD. They’ll see the joke.)

Vile and baseless rumours

15 June 2010
Charles
No comments
Categories: Co-op, Co-operative Funeralcare, funeral cost, National Association of Funeral Directors, SAIF

Yesterday I reported that rumours are swirling in Funeralland concerning the response of the People’s Undertaker to the release of the IPSOS-Mori funeral price comparison commissioned by the independent funeral directors’ trade association, SAIF — a survey which revealed Co-op charges to be, on average, higher than those in the independent sector despite its enjoyment of significant economies of scale.

I thank all those of you who have contacted me, confidentially, to talk about these rumours.

I am pleased and relieved to be able to report that these rumours are indeed baseless. There have been no instances of heavy-handedness concerning industry suppliers Wilcox Limousines, Lyn Oakes the clothing people, or a leading and excellent firm of funeral directors.

Just as I thought!

No official comment yet from SAIF or the NAFD. But I watch my stats. I know who’s looking. I said to them, when I emailed them yesterday, that I am only doing what any conscientious consumer advocate would do. I’d far rather sing the praises of the best, that’s where my emphasis lies, but I have to maintain an overview.

Anything in it?

14 June 2010
Charles
2 Comments
Categories: Co-op, Co-operative Funeralcare, funeral cost, SAIF

Perhaps the most important recent consumer information to reach the public domain was the SAIF IPSOS-Mori  price comparison survey (26 Feb 2010) which showed that  “Average funeral directors’ charges are highest for Dignity funeral directors and lowest for independents. Co-operative Funeralcare branches fall between the two.”

SAIF wouldn’t share these results with the Good Funeral Guide on the grounds, that, though we make a better case for independent funeral directors than most, we were adjudged not to be fit and proper recipients. Good news will out, though. We soon had that clean linen being aired on this website. Since then, SAIF has quietly aired it on its own.

Why the shhh!? I’d have thought that SAIF members pay their subs to have this sort of information trumpeted at full blast. As we go into an era of cuts lots more people are going to be looking for a cheap funeral. Every financial journalist in the country would have picked up on a brightly-worded press release.

One possible reason has reached me in the form of swirling rumours. I say rumours and, for the benefit of Co-op Funeralcare’s lawyers, I repeat: rumours. Allegations. Baseless, doubtless.

These rumours centre on the response of Co-op Funeralcare to the release of the SAIF survey. They are ugly rumours.

Does anyone have any solid, verifiable information they’d like to share?

Don’t leave an anonymous comment below. I couldn’t trace you through it, but others, possibly, could. Contact me direct: Charles@goodfuneralguide.co.uk. Arrange to phone, if you prefer. You will just have to trust that I shall treat anything you say in strictest confidence.

It would be good to stand these rumours up or knock them down, as they deserve.

Funeralcare screwupdate, with added overpricing

12 May 2010
Charles
10 Comments
Categories: Co-op, Co-operative Funeralcare, coffins, direct cremation, funeral cost, no service by request

It is with a heavy-hearted sense of duty that I record this beastly and deplorable allegation against Co-operative Funeralcare. You can find the full version at MoneySavingExpert.com.

Don’t use co-operative funeralcare directors they are disgusting …They failed to complete the legal documents correctly they put the wrong funeral date on the documents … We were refused entry into the crematorium chapel and were left outside in the cold distressed and in total shock, the funeral directors were an absolute disgrace they were too busy blaming the crematoria staff and they in turn were blaming the funeral directors. They threw the flowers into my mums hearse and put her photo in on its side! they showed us no respect or help at all just told us to go back to our cars because the service would not go ahead today. It was only after myself and my family refused to move and told them to get the police that they started to accept that they would have to do something so the service could go ahead. DO NOT USE THE CO-OPERATIVE FUNERAL GROUP!!!!!

Here is an all-too-familiar complaint from the Guardian:

I had problems with the accounts section of Co-operative Funeralcare. When I booked the funeral I said that I would not be able to pay for it until probate had been granted. I was told that would be fine provided I kept the accounts section informed. On the day, and before, the staff involved with the funeral were brilliant. Afterwards I began getting threatening letters from the accounts department. I explained what was happening, but the threatening letters continued, including threats of Court Action and referral to debt collectors … Obviously no company would survive if it was not paid for it’s services, but I had expected a more human approach from Co-operative Funeralcare accounts department, not just communication with a computer.

Also from the Guardian, a case of an unaccountably expensive funeral, even after taking into account the fact that the only charge the writer saved himself was the cost of a celebrant:

In the last 12 months, I have sadly lost my Mum and my wife. Mum’s funeral in South London cost £1480 (inc VAT). My wife’s funeral in Fenland cost £2950 (inc Vat). In both cases we did not make use of a vicar, but conducted the service at the crematorium myself. The only ‘extra’ was another doctor’s certificate needed in the case of my wife. We had no headstones or plaques and no announcements in the newspapers. Included in the Fenland charge was £357 for a vehicle to travel 22 miles from the undertaker’s to the crematorium. I felt , and still do feel, very ripped off … The company we used in Fenland had been taken over by the Co-Op, but hadn’t told anybody.

The following, from the Independent, are not Co-op stories. But there is a moral in them for all funeral directors, because they are going to encounter more and more demand, especially from atheists, for direct cremation:

It was my aunt’s misfortune to die on Maundy Thursday, less than 24 hours before the longest bank holiday of the year. She had donated her body to medical science … But when the day came, her donation was, maddeningly, refused … My uncle and I discussed what to do. We agreed to go for the simplest option, in accordance with what we believed would have been her wishes. I began making enquiries. I phoned six funeral directors and asked them to quote for a cremation. In London, a 45-minute slot at a crematorium costs around £500, but if you are prepared to accept an early morning appointment – 9am or 9.30am – the charge drops to less than £200. In addition, you must pay the fees of two doctors to confirm the death, amounting together to £147 … The quotes I received from the funeral directors ranged from £1,500 to £2,000. I did some arithmetic. Allowing £200 for the cremation, £150 for the doctors’ signatures and £150 for a cardboard coffin (at cost) came to £500 in all. The task for the funeral director was to collect the body from the hospital – St Mary’s, Paddington – and take it to the crematorium (Golders Green, Marylebone, Islington or – the cheapest – Mortlake). For the living, the cost of this journey by taxi would be about £30. For the dead, it turns out, it is £1,000. Dead unlucky, you could say. Next time, I plan to hire an estate car, buy a coffin and do the job myself.

And this:

My father died in 2008. He was a staunch atheist who asked for his body to be ‘offered as convenient for medical use or research and otherwise to be cremated wholly without ceremony’. The hospital didn’t manage to take up this offer so we were faced with the same problem. We were unimpressed with what seemed absurdly expensive offers from undertakers. Eventually my brother took Dad’s body from the hospital mortuary to the crematorium by van, at a fraction of the price. This was entirely successful, and it was what Dad wanted. It’s time the death industry started providing for those of us who do not want any ritual around our remains.

Do leave a comment — especially if you are a funeral director.

Co-operative Funeralcare – a case for care in the community?

18 April 2010
Charles
3 Comments
Categories: Co-op, Co-operative Funeralcare
Listeners to this week’s edition of Radio 4’s hilarious News Quiz hooted from the outset when the programme kicked off with this announcement from the Whitby Gazette:
 
Does your Mum deserve an evening of pampering which will make her feel like a princess? The Whitby Gazette has teamed up with Co-operative Funeralcare to give her a night out she’ll remember for years to come.
 
A scan of the Whitby Gazette website reveals that, owing to the fierceness of the competition, there were, thanks to the bottomless generosity of the Co-op, two incredibly lucky winners (a dead heat): Lisa O’Brien and Donna Dyson. Not only were they fed, they were also presented with floral tributes (coffin sprays?) by Effcare’s tame florist and, of course, conveyed hither and yon in long wheel-base griefmobiles.
 
Lisa suffers from osteoarthritis and fibromyalgia. Donna is her Dad’s carer. Read the story here.
 
Is it puerile to snigger at undertakers who do good works? Yes, of course it is. But only if good works are done for good works’ sake. By good people.