May 21, 2018
How to Help Customers In Their Most Important Moments: Northstar Memorial Group
In addition to a day off of work, patriotic BBQ and summer refreshments on ice, the meaning of Memorial Day touches the most important moments of our lives, and of those we love. It is a day in which we are inspired to honor those people who have given their lives to service. Many expand the traditional meaning of the day to appreciate those close to us who we have lost.
Recently, we had the pleasure of speaking with longtime Visiting Media member, Dave Montgomery of Northstar Memorial Group. For over a decade, NorthStar Memorial Group has guided the future of the funeral and memorialization profession with a mission to care, comfort and plan. They are industry leaders dedicated to serving the living by honoring the deceased and the legacies they entrust in our care.
Often times, we discuss how TrueTour can assist marketing and sales teams in providing better information, but Montgomery shares his poignant and extraordinary expansion of that idea. TrueTour, says Dave, elegantly provides guests with everything they may need or want to help them make one of the most important decisions of their lives. Read on to discover how TrueTour has completely revolutionized how this company operates.
When you are dealing with one of the most important moments in a person or people’s life, the decision is apt to be emotional and stressful. Fear of making the wrong decision usually creates a difficult buying process – many questions, on-site tours, more questions, competitive comparisons, and always more questions.
Handling Sales With Grace
In the role of cemetery development, part of my job is to train my amazing team to navigate sales with grace, empathy, professional integrity and calm. Our team only consists of people who understand the weight of our task at hand. This is an honor. It is a gift. And, yes, we have a job to do which is to show someone why we genuinely have the best memorial locations. That is why when we come across a tool like TrueTour which makes such an immediate and positive impact on our ability to sell, we stop and take notice.
Just as buying a home is a very visual process, our business is essentially a visual process. Rather than just seeing a one dimensional photograph of it, now they can actually see the property virtually from 360 degrees. This certainly gives the purchaser a lot more confidence in what they’re buying, and it makes the overall process, we hope, quite a bit easier.
Previous to becoming a Visiting Media member, we were showing what we hoped was decent photography of different areas, but it was quite limited because we might only have one or two good photographs of an area. These simply didn’t give one the sense of standing in the space, so they left the purchaser still with questions.
This led to the next step, which was to schedule an on-site tour. This raises its own challenges, namely weather and distance to site.
Shortening the Buying Cycle in a Profound Way
For us, TrueTour obviously solved multiple problems for us. Being able to show a visual location in 360 helped create an emotional story. It conveyed in a way a 2D image can not what it might be like to stand there and remember our loved one. The 360 photograph could capture the weather on an ideal day, helping us navigate Mother Nature, and it could be transported virtually to any purchaser anywhere around the world.
Valley of the Temples, Oahu, HI
Valley of the Temples is one of 75 locations in 11 states. Here is their TrueTour.
TrueTour has helped us take our virtual brochure to new audiences we have struggled with in the past – namely outside the U.S. and show entire families how beautiful our memorial locations are. We have had families purchase memorial sites from the TrueTour without having to schedule the on-site tour at all.
However, we still expect to provide the on-site tour – it’s just that with TrueTour, the quality of this inquiry is exceptionally more qualified than it was before.
Our business is a very delicate and sensitive one. We know we are speaking with a family that has recently experienced a profound loss. We do our best to present clear, easy-to-understand information to help bring some comfort and relief during the decision process. TrueTour provides a convenient, seamless balance between visual imagery and simple information. This tool has been the fastest way for us to simultaneously address all of the questions a purchaser has at once.
TrueTour, Just the Beginning
We are discovering more and more applications of this tool, and it has truly revolutionized our sales team. We now invite visitors to take a virtual tour of our locations. We also present the TrueTour as part of our standard sales team protocol. In the future, we are excited to use the VR Dome and we may even expand some of our services to offer individual members their own TrueTour with ways to visit their loved ones more frequently.
This is a very positive partnership for us, and we sincerely recommend TrueTour as a phenomenal virtual brochure and sales tool solution.
Skylawn Memorial Park, San Mateo, CA
Skylawn Memorial Park has created a gentle welcome video which prepares the visitor with excellent instructions for the best possible and most helpful TrueTour experience.
How Can You Apply This To Your Customers?
Does this strike a chord for you and your business? Most businesses have a visual component to their work, whether its a description of their space, venue, or portfolio. There are often stories which can only be told through emotional visual assets. We would love to discuss with you and your sales team how you can make the buying decision better, easier and faster. Leave your comments below or contact us today!
May 21, 2018
How to Help Customers In Their Most Important Moments: Northstar Memorial Group
In addition to a day off of work, patriotic BBQ and summer refreshments on ice, the meaning of Memorial Day touches the most important moments of our lives, and of those we love. It is a day in which we are inspired to honor those people who have given their lives to service. Many expand the traditional meaning of the day to appreciate those close to us who we have lost.
Recently, we had the pleasure of speaking with longtime Visiting Media member, Dave Montgomery of Northstar Memorial Group. For over a decade, NorthStar Memorial Group has guided the future of the funeral and memorialization profession with a mission to care, comfort and plan. They are industry leaders dedicated to serving the living by honoring the deceased and the legacies they entrust in our care.
Often times, we discuss how TrueTour can assist marketing and sales teams in providing better information, but Montgomery shares his poignant and extraordinary expansion of that idea. TrueTour, says Dave, elegantly provides guests with everything they may need or want to help them make one of the most important decisions of their lives. Read on to discover how TrueTour has completely revolutionized how this company operates.
When you are dealing with one of the most important moments in a person or people’s life, the decision is apt to be emotional and stressful. Fear of making the wrong decision usually creates a difficult buying process – many questions, on-site tours, more questions, competitive comparisons, and always more questions.
Handling Sales With Grace
In the role of cemetery development, part of my job is to train my amazing team to navigate sales with grace, empathy, professional integrity and calm. Our team only consists of people who understand the weight of our task at hand. This is an honor. It is a gift. And, yes, we have a job to do which is to show someone why we genuinely have the best memorial locations. That is why when we come across a tool like TrueTour which makes such an immediate and positive impact on our ability to sell, we stop and take notice.
Just as buying a home is a very visual process, our business is essentially a visual process. Rather than just seeing a one dimensional photograph of it, now they can actually see the property virtually from 360 degrees. This certainly gives the purchaser a lot more confidence in what they’re buying, and it makes the overall process, we hope, quite a bit easier.
Previous to becoming a Visiting Media member, we were showing what we hoped was decent photography of different areas, but it was quite limited because we might only have one or two good photographs of an area. These simply didn’t give one the sense of standing in the space, so they left the purchaser still with questions.
This led to the next step, which was to schedule an on-site tour. This raises its own challenges, namely weather and distance to site.
Shortening the Buying Cycle in a Profound Way
For us, TrueTour obviously solved multiple problems for us. Being able to show a visual location in 360 helped create an emotional story. It conveyed in a way a 2D image can not what it might be like to stand there and remember our loved one. The 360 photograph could capture the weather on an ideal day, helping us navigate Mother Nature, and it could be transported virtually to any purchaser anywhere around the world.
Valley of the Temples, Oahu, HI
Valley of the Temples is one of 75 locations in 11 states. Here is their TrueTour.
TrueTour has helped us take our virtual brochure to new audiences we have struggled with in the past – namely outside the U.S. and show entire families how beautiful our memorial locations are. We have had families purchase memorial sites from the TrueTour without having to schedule the on-site tour at all.
However, we still expect to provide the on-site tour – it’s just that with TrueTour, the quality of this inquiry is exceptionally more qualified than it was before.
Our business is a very delicate and sensitive one. We know we are speaking with a family that has recently experienced a profound loss. We do our best to present clear, easy-to-understand information to help bring some comfort and relief during the decision process. TrueTour provides a convenient, seamless balance between visual imagery and simple information. This tool has been the fastest way for us to simultaneously address all of the questions a purchaser has at once.
TrueTour, Just the Beginning
We are discovering more and more applications of this tool, and it has truly revolutionized our sales team. We now invite visitors to take a virtual tour of our locations. We also present the TrueTour as part of our standard sales team protocol. In the future, we are excited to use the VR Dome and we may even expand some of our services to offer individual members their own TrueTour with ways to visit their loved ones more frequently.
This is a very positive partnership for us, and we sincerely recommend TrueTour as a phenomenal virtual brochure and sales tool solution.
Skylawn Memorial Park, San Mateo, CA
Skylawn Memorial Park has created a gentle welcome video which prepares the visitor with excellent instructions for the best possible and most helpful TrueTour experience.
How Can You Apply This To Your Customers?
Does this strike a chord for you and your business? Most businesses have a visual component to their work, whether its a description of their space, venue, or portfolio. There are often stories which can only be told through emotional visual assets. We would love to discuss with you and your sales team how you can make the buying decision better, easier and faster. Leave your comments below or contact us today!