Written for funeral directors rather than families. If you are arranging a funeral, this page is the one you want.
Families are starting to ask about memorial QR codes, usually having seen one or read about them, and usually at an awkward moment in the arrangement. It is worth having a position on them before you are asked.
Where they actually fit
Not at the first arrangement meeting. Almost nothing optional belongs there, and offering technology to somebody in the first forty-eight hours reads badly however well intended.
There are two moments where it fits naturally.
The order of service. You are already producing printed matter, and a code on the back costs nothing to add. Everyone who attends leaves with a way to reach the memorial page later, which matters particularly for the mourners who will never visit a graveside, and for those who could not travel.
Aftercare, and the memorial conversation. Most burial authorities require six to twelve months of ground settlement before a permanent memorial. That gap is the natural moment, and it is a conversation many firms are already having when they discuss headstones. A small plaque added to the original memorial order is fitted in one visit and approved in one permit application, which is materially cheaper for the family than a separate job later.
The questions to have an answer for
Four are worth preparing, because they are the ones the product invites.
"Will the cemetery allow it?" Usually, in council cemeteries, as a small discreet plaque via a permit and an accredited mason. Churchyards vary by diocese and some refuse. Backgrounds in cemetery rules and churchyard regulations.
"Will it still work in fifty years?" The format is an open international standard nobody owns. The risk is not the technology, it is the supplier. Which leads to the next one.
"What if the company goes bust?" The question you should be asking too, because if it happens the family will come back to you, not to the supplier. Covered below.
"Is it disrespectful?" Reasonable, and best answered by showing rather than arguing. A page of photographs and family memories settles it faster than any explanation.
What to check before recommending anyone
This matters more for you than it does for a family buying once, because your name is attached to the recommendation for as long as the firm exists. Five things:
- No recurring subscription. The most important one. A memorial page on an annual payment is one bereavement away from deletion, and when the surviving spouse dies the card stops and the page goes with it. The complaint lands at your door years later. Insist on one-off pricing.
- Families can export everything, at any time. Photographs and video as ordinary files they hold on their own device, without having to ask permission, so a supplier failing is an inconvenience rather than a second loss. Ask separately what the supplier has committed in writing to do if it stops trading. Most say nothing at all, which is itself an answer.
- Dynamic codes. A code encoding a fixed final address can never be repointed. One that forwards can be moved to a new host if anything changes. Ask which; if they do not understand the question, that is your answer.
- No branding on the plaque. Several burial authorities treat a company name on a memorial as advertising in a cemetery and refuse the permit outright. A plain plaque avoids the argument.
- Marked metal, not printed. Printed and laminated codes fade in British weather within a few years. If a plaque you recommended is unreadable at the five-year visit, that reflects on you. See the durability guide.
Why some firms are offering them
Three reasons, in the order they tend to matter.
It answers a question you are already being asked, and having no answer is worse than having a considered one.
It supports aftercare. Firms that keep a relationship past the invoice get recommended. A memorial page gives a reason to make contact at six months, at the anniversary, and when the headstone goes up, without any of those contacts being a sales call.
It differentiates on something other than price. With standardised price lists now displayed, competing on cost is a race nobody wins. Competing on what a family is left holding in five years is a better position.
The mistake to avoid
Selling the plaque and leaving the family to fill the page alone.
The failure mode across this whole product category is the empty page: bought in the raw first weeks, fitted, and never filled, because sitting down with a box of photographs is more than most people can do at that point. The family is then left with a code on a headstone leading to almost nothing, and they will remember who suggested it.
Two things prevent it, and both are things you are well placed to do. Get the link in front of mourners at the funeral, when the people who hold the memories are all in one room, rather than months later when they have dispersed. And make sure the family knows somebody else can build it for them if they cannot face it.
Talking to us
Our memorial plaque with memory page is £70, 80mm, in brushed steel or brushed black, engraved into the metal. There is no company name and no web address on the plaque, only the code, and the name and dates if the family orders them. It is one payment, with no subscription and no recurring charge to the family ever, and the page is included for as long as The Life Behind is trading.
On the question you will be asked: no company can guarantee it will always be trading, and we do not pretend otherwise. What we can do is say in writing what happens if we stopped, and our terms of service do. Every family gets at least 90 days' notice by email and a full download of everything on their page before it goes offline. Separately, and without asking us, anyone with access to a page can download everything on it at any time, as ordinary photograph and video files they keep themselves. That is the part we would rather families relied on.
We also produce memory cards for handing out at services, and we will build the page for families who cannot face it.
If you are a funeral director and want to discuss supplying these to your families, get in touch and tell us how you would want it to work. We would rather build the arrangement around how your firm actually operates than hand you a scheme.