# Funeral Home Answering Service with AI, 24/7 Source: https://insertchat.com/industries/funeral-homes > Take first calls from families, hospices, and hospitals at any hour, and get the details to your on-call director. A funeral home answering service with AI picks up when no director can. InsertChat’s assistant takes first calls with the questions you set, such as the place of death and whether hospice was involved, emails an urgent alert to your team, and answers service times, directions, and price questions from the information you publish. ## Turn a 3 a.m. hospice call into a complete first call Example workflow: Phone call. Illustrative scenario. Answers depend on your sources; actions depend on your connected tools and permissions. This is not a customer testimonial or measured result. A daughter calls at 3:10 a.m., while your on-call director is out on a removal across the county. > My dad just passed at home. The hospice nurse is here and told us to call you. What happens now? ## Answer with care Offer condolences in the words you wrote, then ask one question at a time and let the caller set the pace. ## Take the first call Record her father’s name, the home address, the hospice agency and the nurse on site, her relationship and callback number, and burial or cremation wishes if the family knows them. ## Alert the on-call director The call is marked urgent, an email alert with the summary goes to your team, and the daughter hears what you want families told about the callback. A text or email confirms her callback request. ## Your team sets the boundaries The assistant doesn’t put the daughter through to a director or schedule the removal. Your on-call director calls the family and the hospice nurse back with every detail already in hand. ## What it handles for funeral homes Handled by your assistant: - Service, visitation, and memorial times, with chapel directions and parking - Obituary questions, such as when it will post and where to leave condolences - Price questions, answered from the General Price List you add - Pre-need planning consultations booked on your calendar - Where to send flowers, and the livestream link you post for a service - Messages from cemeteries, florists, clergy, and other funeral homes Sent straight to your team: - First calls from families, hospices, hospitals, and nursing facilities - An unexpected death at home with no hospice involved, answered with your 911 instruction first - Calls from a medical examiner’s or coroner’s office - Families asking for a director or changing arrangements already made - Questions about a loved one in your care or the timing of a cremation - Complaints, billing disputes, and callers too upset to go on ## What it asks and what it needs to know Details it collects: - Name of the person who died, and the date and time of death - Place of death: home, hospice, hospital, or nursing facility, with the address - Caller’s name, relationship, and a safe callback number - Whether hospice was involved and the death was expected - Whether the medical examiner or coroner is involved - Attending physician’s name, if the caller knows it - For facility calls, the nurse’s name and direct line What to add to its knowledge: - Your General Price List, plus the casket, outer burial container, and package prices you publish - Upcoming services, visitations, and obituaries, from your website or a document - Chapel addresses, directions, parking, and livestream links - Your first call questions and the wording to use with grieving callers - What families hear about who calls back and how soon - What to bring to the arrangement conference, such as clothing, photos, and military discharge papers ## Can an AI answering service take first calls for a funeral home? Yes, using the first call questions you write. A family calling from home is asked whether hospice was involved and the death was expected, a nursing facility is asked for the nurse’s name and direct line, and every caller is asked whether the medical examiner or coroner has been contacted. Each answer is saved on the contact, and the call is marked “needs you” with an urgent email alert to your team, so the director who calls back knows where to go and whom to call. ## Will a caller be put through to the director on call? No. InsertChat doesn’t transfer live calls. The assistant tells the caller, in your words, that a director will call back, and your on-call director returns the call from the shared inbox with the details in front of them, so the family doesn’t have to repeat anything. If families should reach a person first, set your line to ring the on-call phone and let the assistant answer only when nobody picks up. ## Can it give price information over the phone? Yes, from the prices you publish. The FTC’s Funeral Rule says funeral providers must give accurate price information to callers who ask, and can’t require their name, address, or phone number first. Add your General Price List and your casket and outer burial container prices to the assistant’s knowledge, and tell it to answer price questions without asking who is calling. It quotes only those prices; a total for a specific family or a package you don’t list goes to a director. Sources: [FTC: The FTC Funeral Rule](https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/ftc-funeral-rule); [FTC: Complying with the Funeral Rule](https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/complying-funeral-rule). ## How does it handle pre-need planning calls? It answers general questions from what you publish and books a planning consultation into open times on your calendar, noting whether the plan is for the caller or a family member, burial or cremation interest, and any plan they already hold elsewhere. Booked callers get a reminder by text or email three days and one day ahead. Contract terms, payment plans, and funding options stay with your pre-need staff. ## How much does an AI answering service for funeral directors cost? InsertChat Pro costs $98 a month, about $3.27 a day, for one phone number, monthly credits, three AI assistants, and three seats. Calls use credits by the started minute, and an unhurried first call with a grieving family uses more than a question about directions. Homes with several chapels can give each its own assistant and number, at $10 a month per extra number. New customers can try Pro free for 7 days. ## AI answering vs voicemail vs a live funeral answering service | Compared | InsertChat AI receptionist | Voicemail | Live answering service | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Answers questions | Yes, from your knowledge base | No; callers leave a message | From the script you give the operators | | Books appointments | Into the built-in calendar, Google Calendar, Outlook, Calendly, or Cal.com | No | Depends on the provider and your calendar access | | When it answers | Always, after hours, or when your team doesn’t pick up | When nobody answers | During the hours your plan covers | | Record of each call | Transcript and AI summary in the shared inbox | A recorded message | Message notes from the operator | | Urgent calls | Flagged and emailed to your team, with the safety steps you wrote; no live transfer | Heard when someone checks messages | Handled with the escalation instructions you give | | Other channels | Website chat, SMS, email, and WhatsApp from the same knowledge | Phone only | Varies by provider | | Pricing | From $98 per month with monthly credits; calls billed in whole minutes | Usually included with your phone service | Varies by provider; often per minute or per call | Voicemail and answering service details vary by provider. Check the terms of any service you compare. ## Can calls ring our on-call director first? Yes. Set calls to ring a number you choose first, such as the on-call director’s cell, and the assistant picks up when nobody answers within 5 to 60 seconds or the call reaches a staff voicemail. You can also have it answer every call outside the weekly hours you set, overnight included, while your office line rings as usual during the day. ## Can hospice and hospital staff skip the assistant? Yes. Save the hospices, hospitals, and nursing facilities that call you as contacts, and set the assistant to answer only callers who aren’t saved. Their calls then ring the number you choose. If one still reaches the assistant, it takes the first call details like any other call and flags it for your team. ## Does it connect to our funeral home software? No. InsertChat doesn’t connect to funeral home management or case software, so your case records stay where they are. Each first call arrives as a contact with the summary and transcript for your staff to enter, and pre-need consultations can go into Google Calendar, Outlook, Calendly, Cal.com, or InsertChat’s own calendar. ## Can families text or chat with us instead of calling? Yes. Families can text your InsertChat number or use your website chat to ask about service times, directions, and obituaries, and the assistant replies from the same knowledge as your phone line. Photos sent for an obituary or memorial slideshow go to your staff, since picture messages are always handed to a person. The assistant also answers in the caller’s language, such as Spanish. ## Related features - [After-hours answering](https://insertchat.com/product/after-hours) - [AI receptionist](https://insertchat.com/product/phone) - [Scheduling](https://insertchat.com/product/scheduling) ## Broader industry - [Professional services](https://insertchat.com/industries/professional-services): Give every new inquiry a clear next step.