SAIF Golden Charter

Grabbing digital with both hands

Commercial Director at Golden Charter Mark Moran talks about how the plan provider is supporting its partners to excel in online spaces

The customer experience

As technology advances, it’s essential that we embrace digital innovation and seize the opportunity it offers. The world of ecommerce is fast growing and if you’re not incorporating digital into your business, you’re missing out on connecting with customers.

As many as 70% of our target market are using online resources to search for information about funeral plans1. Customers are using online options throughout: from the first point of contact to find out more information about funeral plans, right through to completing the entire purchase journey. Adding digital solutions to your range of services will help secure future funerals from these customers and retain market share for independents.

Joining the majority of our partners who have already embraced digital gives customers additional choice and an enhanced experience, while also streamlining your operations. Giving enquirers the opportunity to use an online option as part of their information search and purchase journey enables you to connect with more customers and efficiently meet demand for funeral plans.

Evolving our benefits

The digital world is in constant change and always improving, and so are we, for the benefit of customers. It’s important to us that we tailor the options available to our partners, whether you’re introducing customers to us or guiding them through every aspect of their funeral plan purchase.

For appointed representatives

As our appointed representative partner, you have access to online plan sales. It’s proving extremely popular with customers and funeral directors alike, with the number of our partners displaying online plan sales on their website doubling in less than two months.

The vast majority of our partners who sell funeral plans directly to customers use our digital applications system to complete a plan application. It provides customers with a great experience and ensures all elements of the regulated sales process are followed in a consistent manner.

Our regular digital training sessions are a great way to familiarise yourself with digital applications and ask questions. They’re a perfect way to top up your annual CPD for those new to the platform or those who’d simply benefit from a refresher course.

Sharing our digital brochure is a great way to present enquirers with more information to help them decide if a funeral plan is right for them.

Our enquiry manager tool is now available to support appointed representatives with their own enquiry follow-up. It’s a great way to capture customer information, helping you deliver the best follow-up process and increasing the number of plan sales you make while delivering a hugely positive customer experience.

Introducer appointed representative partners

The number of introducer appointed representative partners who’ve benefited from the sale of a funeral plan has almost doubled over the summer. Our IAR guide is available on mygoldencharter.co.uk to help new and existing introducers to connect with customers.

Our digital flyer is made specifically for our introducer appointed representative partners to share with funeral plan enquirers.

In addition to our dedicated phone line, our introducer appointed representatives can take advantage of our enquiry manager tool to help refer customers to us online.

Following testing with a small group of funeral directors, we’re delighted to share our online plan sales platform with our introducer appointed representative partners. Online plan sales allow customers to purchase a funeral plan online originating from your website.

Visit mygoldencharter.co.uk and speak to your Golden Charter business manager for more information on the digital options available to your business.

The future is digital

Digital tools help you to connect with customers and we’re supporting our partners to take advantage of these opportunities. We’re helping independents leverage the power of digital to create new solutions and improve existing ones for customers and for their businesses.

There are lots of digital options available to you and we’re here to help you to maximise their impact for your business. Your Golden Charter business manager can guide you in the direction of our training sessions, such as our digital webinars or customer experience workshops. These tools are just some of the ways we’re helping make transitioning to digital increasingly convenient for our partners.

To find out more about using digital tools to maximise the opportunities for your business and meet customers’ needs, visit mygoldencharter.co.uk and speak to your Golden Charter business manager. If you’re not currently offering Golden Charter funeral plans but are interested in our partnership benefits, email to find out more.

¹ James Law Research Ltd, Golden Charter Attitudes and Intentions Research, October 2022