Mike McDowell
Chief Operating Officer
Companion Funeral & Cremation Service
Athens, Chattanooga, Cleveland, and Oak Ridge, TN
Average call volume: 2,600 calls/year
As a funeral professional, growing your business can be complicated. But having a partner who truly understands your needs and goals can make the process seamless.
That’s what Mike McDowell, Chief Operating Officer at Companion Funeral & Cremation Service, found with Funeral Directors Life (FDL). With FDL, Companion Funeral & Cremation Service secured financing quickly, acquired new properties, and continued expanding without unnecessary challenges.
“FDL saw our vision, understood our goals, and quickly made the financing work,” Mike said. “Everything has been seamless. We’ve had a really great experience.”
Read to learn more about Mike’s experience with FDL.
About two years ago, we had the opportunity to buy a building across the street from our main office. We reached out to our previous lender, a local bank, but they had a hard time understanding our business model. They had a lot of questions and ultimately created extra roadblocks for us.
At the same time, we came down to the home office on a VIP trip and learned about FDL’s lending service. We didn’t have to explain the funeral profession, our business model, or our needs. FDL understood the way we operate and really bought into our vision. That was the biggest difference, and ultimately, what made us choose FDL.
It’s been so helpful to work with someone who’s familiar with the profession. The process was so simple. There were no hurdles to jump through. FDL saw our vision, understood our goals, and quickly made the financing work. And since then, we’ve acquired two more properties. Everything has been seamless. We’ve had a really great experience.
It’s hard to describe how much easier Encore has made our lives. It's so simple. Our directors love it because the Encore team takes care of everything besides pushing the button to start it. And if we forget, they'll do that for us, too. It's cool to have something so painful for us become easy and accessible.
And it helps us give people closure, even if they can’t necessarily walk into our building. Encore meets our core values and allows us to give people an opportunity to be present when they can’t physically be there.
We really appreciate that we don’t have to type information over and over. Once we write a preneed contract, we never have to type the information again. There are a lot of ways to do preneed, but FDL’s systems are seamless and make our lives so much easier.
Steve Jobs said, “It just works,” about Apple products. I feel that way about FDL. No matter what service we start using, whether it’s FDL’s livestreaming, preneed, lending, or marketing, it just works. We don’t have to think about it or jump through hoops. It works the way it's supposed to the first time and every time. Everything we've signed up for with FDL has made us significantly more efficient, which keeps staffing costs down.
But it also creates a better work environment for our employees. Our funeral directors are living their best lives. They've got much better work-life balance today than they did five years ago, and a lot of that is because of FDL.
If they’re competitors, we tell them to run and not sign up. But for everyone else, we sing FDL’s praises. It’s a game-changer. It elevates our funeral home and the entire profession. FDL is one of the only companies we've worked with that consistently underpromises and overdelivers. Everyone goes above and beyond to make sure that our experience is better than what we had hoped for. We couldn’t recommend FDL more.