Signs Your Funeral Home Of Choice, 

May Not Be Servicing Your Family And Guests Well.

1.     At the funeral home, there should be staff members opening the doors, offering to hang up coats and hats for their guests and greeting them pleasantly as you enter and exit the facility. When you come through the front door, you should always be greeted warmly by a staff member. Names will often be exchanged and hands shaken in cordiality. If you are the family, some words of comfort may be offered. There should always be a positive “arrival experience” for the family and guests.

2.     The funeral home staff should always be standing when greeting you. Setting and possibly even waiving at you as you enter the funeral home exhibits signs of laziness. There should always be a positive “arrival experience” for the family and guests.

3.     You, your family or guests during a visitation or funeral service should NEVER feel rushed by the funeral home staff because they have another service immediately following or that the staff simply wants to go home.

4.     Your deceased loved one or friend does not look well prepared (Noticeable poorly applied cosmetics, not freshly shaven and manicured, proper comfortable hand placement, wrinkled clothing, etc.) This could mean proper time and care is not being taken by the funeral home staff or that the funeral home is just too busy to do proper preparation well.

5.     The funeral director or arranger that assisted you with arrangement conference are not there for you when you have your first visitation or even for the funeral proceedings.

6.     When you enter the funeral home and the staff does not greet you and is not friendly and helpful right away.

7.     During the removal of deceased from place of death, (At Henson and Kitchen Mortuary) we call that (“Transferring Your Loved One Into Our Care”). Representatives of the funeral home should do the following: a.) Funeral home transfer team members should always greet the family first. b.) Funeral home transfer team should Never be in a hurry and always give family members ample time to say goodbyes. c.) Funeral home transfer team, should always explain to the family what is about to happen during the transfer process and what to expect. d.) The funeral home transfer team should always get permission from the family to begin the transfer process. e.) Funeral home transfer team members should always give the family the option to relocate themselves to another area while the transfer of care begins. f.) After the transfer into our care, one team member should remain with the vehicle and with the deceased while the other meets with the family to secure a meeting date and time with the legal next of kin. If this is not happening for you and your family, you may have chose the wrong funeral home.

At Henson and Kitchen Mortuary, our goal is to exceed family and guest expectations every-time and with consistency! We believe a family should be treated well, with the utmost respect and treated as a valued client family and in many instances are and become our dear friends. Some funeral homes take their family clientele for granted (We Don’t) because they feel like the family will continue calling on their business out of tradition and habit even if the service levels are diminished. In many instances the “poor service” funeral homes are right about their philosophy. As difficult as it is to understand, some people will accept poor service and poor care because that’s just the way it’s been done for years. They continue to accept poor service from that funeral home because that is where they go simply out of habit. To us at Henson and Kitchen this is not acceptable! You, your family and certainly your loved one deserves way better. We at Henson and Kitchen also believe that when planning for funeral, cremation and memorial service, we have one opportunity to get it right the first time and that’s what we strive to do each and every-time. The family should always leave our firm satisfied with the services performed. A family should NEVER have to make excuses for why the services they received were less than excellent! ----Fred H. Kitchen