Families First: Leveraging Technology to Build Customer Relationships

By June 2020, the entrepreneurial, client-focused funeral home company Families First Funeral Homes & Tribute Centre (Families First) had expanded to four branches in the Windsor-Essex region of Ontario, Canada. Families First had served families across the region for nearly 25 years as it manoeuvred through the information era and dealt with changing dynamics in the funeral services industry; changing regional demographics; cultural elements; and the needs of its different stakeholders, including people planning their own future funerals and bereaved family and friends planning final goodbyes for their loved ones. Now, recognizing the need to enhance its technology—particularly in light of the changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, which had heightened the need for greater technological features in the funeral services industry—Families First had to consider how to continue providing value to customers and develop a strong customer management and communication plan with the use of technology, incorporating advanced technological features into its customer relationship and growth strategy.

This case is suitable for a second- or third-year undergraduate-level course in business communications, introduction to marketing, or customer relationships. The case focuses on an often-overlooked source of business graduate employment - the funeral services industry - and offers a unique and likely unfamiliar context in which students can practically apply stakeholder and relationship marketing theories.<br><br>After working through the case and assignment questions, students will be able to do the following:<ul><li>Assess an organization’s macro environment by conducting a PESTLE analysis.</li><li>Apply stakeholder theory to identify internal and external stakeholders, and to prioritize the interests of and power held by a company’s stakeholders; consider how the relationships among various stakeholders shape industry dynamics.</li><li>Identify the challenges faced by a client-focused funeral home company in the context of changing demographics, generational differences, advancements in technology, and the COVID-19 pandemic and suggest IT solutions that proactively respond to customer needs.</li><li>Apply relationship marketing theory and a stakeholder analysis to create a stakeholder communication and marketing strategy that prioritizes the needs of the firm, creatively incorporates information technology (IT) to improve customer service, and generates strong customer retention and communication.</li></ul>

• communications
• stakeholders
• technology