Playbook Online and Funeral Live at Oleahof: ‘Reliable and flexible’
Oleahof is a North Holland-based funeral home with its own funeral directors and multiple rooms. About two years ago, Oleahof switched to 302 Uitvaart's platform for both its presentation solution and live streaming software. This allows it to offer relatives better service and more choices than before.
Taking care of everything around the funeral from A to Z: that is the promise Oleahof makes and wants to keep to relatives. In the digital age, however, fulfilling that promise became increasingly challenging. Next of kin have more and more wishes, with - especially since the corona pandemic - an increasing demand to be able to follow funerals via livestreaming.
That is why Edger van der Laan, director of the Den Helder funeral home, started looking for modern solutions about two years ago to further professionalise the service to relatives. The choice quickly fell on Playbook Online and Uitvaart Live from 302 Uitvaart. ‘I think reliability and flexibility are important, and 302 Funeral could offer us that,’ he says.
Situation: USB sticks with unreadable files
For years, Oleahof had been using a PowerPoint-like media player to display photos and other media during funeral ceremonies. ‘Relatives would come to us with a USB stick full of photos and music,’ says Van der Laan. ‘Along with a complicated story about how the sequence should be and which music belonged to which.’
Quite understandable, as bereaved families want a funeral to go exactly as they envisage it. ‘But often those files were unreadable for us because it was a weird file type. We then had to convert that, which took a lot of time and was a lot of hassle. In the end, this also sometimes caused stress for bereaved families, and that's exactly what you don't want as a funeral home.’
Van der Laan therefore started looking for something new. ‘Not so much to save time or costs, but to improve the service and professionalism towards the bereaved. We wanted something reliable that just does it all the time and that allows us to process all input from next of kin easily and without problems.’
‘PowerPoint or other media players are simply absolutely not reliable in this industry. Error messages, different versions, there is always something. Playbook Online does it right, anytime, anywhere. And once when we had a technical question, 302 helped us personally within minutes. That service, reliability and professionalism is exactly what we were looking for, and what we found with 302 Funeral.’
Edger van der Laan, Director Oleahof
Solution: one platform to control the entire funeral home
In that search, Van der Laan soon came across 302 Uitvaart's products. Oleahof provides around 40 funeral services a month with Playbook Online. Livestreams are provided at the request of bereaved families via Uitvaart Live.
‘Basically, bereaved people can do all the composing of the funeral ceremony themselves,’ Van der Laan explains the method. ‘There is a clear manual and in practice almost everyone comes out of it. You just drag your files into it, and whatever type of files they are, Playbook Online can handle them.’
Every now and then, there are bereaved families who still prefer to outsource the composing of the ceremony. Oleahof then offers this as a paid service. However, the vast majority of next-of-kin do it themselves, and with success. Van der Laan: ‘Especially if people are digitally literate - and there is always a grandson or granddaughter who is - we see the most beautiful end products come along.’
No later than 24 hours before the funeral, relatives submit their ceremony digitally. Oleahof's funeral director checks the final product and gets in touch if he sees any imperfections. ‘At our location, we can then control all the rooms in the entire funeral home from one clear platform. In this way, we keep a grip on quality and can realise a professional, respectful funeral time after time. Exactly what we want.’
‘Reliability of your software is important for funeral homes. We never have to worry that files won't work.’
Results: service, reliability and professionalism
Van der Laan still notices the added value of 302 Funeral's products every day when he talks to next-of-kin. ‘Being able to do something yourself is something relatives really like. People want to compose a funeral in their own way. With Playbook Online, this is possible.’
Van der Laan also notices in the cooperation with funeral directors that Playbook Online is appreciated. Funeral directors enjoy working with the software and being able to offer it to next of kin. ‘It is low-threshold and literally usable by everyone. That applies to families as well as funeral directors.’
Back to the situation of before, Van der Laan does not want for anything. ‘PowerPoint or other media players are simply absolutely not reliable in this industry. Error messages, different versions, there is always something. Playbook Online does it well, anytime, anywhere. And once when we had a technical question, 302 helped us personally within minutes. That service, reliability and professionalism is exactly what we were looking for, and what we found with 302 Funeral.’
‘Whitelabelling by 302 Funeral allows us to offer Playbook Online and Funeral Live in our own house style. A very valuable bonus.’
