As states across the country begin lifting stay-at-home orders and restrictions on group gatherings, cemeteries and funeral homes are seeing the return of funerals and memorial services. Many of you are opening your doors for the first time in months and are once again able to meet with families to give the care and service you’re passionate about giving.
Due to COVID restrictions and funeral postponements, many cemetery and funeral homes face a backlog of memorial orders, and are concerned if they will be fulfilled, and in a timely manner. You also know your families have waited months in many cases to memorialize their loved one. Because you’re passionate about those you serve, your focus now moves on to minimizing additional delays in families being able to get closure through the permanent memorial.
So how can you ensure they don’t have to wait any longer than necessary? The number one way is to partner with a domestic natural stone supplier. Why?
To start, imported stone often requires lead times of three months or more, in typical scenarios. To mitigate long wait times on imported goods, suppliers will carry an inventory. But when working with a broker to source imported inventory, you’re limited to what they have on hand if you want to ensure a timely turnaround. With shipping times and potential delays from overseas companies being even more uncertain the last few months, the import supply chain is being severely impacted, and could result in even longer production times.
When sourcing stone from a domestic supplier, you significantly increase the timeliness and service you’re able to provide families. Domestic sources often can deliver in less than half the time of an imported product. What’s more, a domestic source that’s also vertically integrated has full control over the supply chain — dramatically minimizing the opportunity for disruptions. Because vertically integrated suppliers maintain full ownership of quarry systems and manufacturing facilities, they’ve been able to continue running operations to meet lead times.
As you take the timeliness of working with a domestic memorial provider into account, remember other important considerations of working with a U.S.-based supplier. Does the stone for the project need to match or blend with the colors of existing monuments and other structures at the memorial park such as columbaria and mausoleums? A domestic stone may be the best choice then if the existing stone came from North America, due to its availability and ease of matching it with other domestic colors.
As a vertically integrated domestic supplier, we have full control over our supply chain and operations, while offering our customers a single point of contact for managing orders and status updates. Here at Coldspring, we always look forward to helping you meet families’ needs for closure with timely, permanent memorials.