Reimagining Funeral Services for the Digital Age

Streamlining Church-based Funeral Planning in Hessen Through User-Centered Design

Problem

Funeral planning was creating unnecessary stress for grieving families in Hessen. The process of securing a pastor and church for funeral services involved multiple phone calls, uncertainty, and frequent rescheduling. Parish offices were overwhelmed with coordination tasks, while pastors felt their autonomy was threatened by existing scheduling solutions. Standard business scheduling tools fundamentally failed to address the church's unique hybrid scheduling needs.

Solution

We developed an innovative "Availability" booking system within ChurchDesk that respects pastoral autonomy while creating transparency for funeral directors and families. The custom solution bridges the gap between rigid business scheduling and on-call systems, integrating seamlessly with the church's existing digital ecosystem. It accommodates complex cemetery scheduling requirements and reduces coordination overhead by 70%, resulting in confirmed funeral arrangements within minutes instead of days.

The Challenge: Grief Compounded by Complexity

When a loved one passes away, families turn to funeral directors who then contact local parishes to arrange church services. What should be a straightforward process was instead a complex dance of phone calls and scheduling conflicts:

• Funeral directors would call parish offices with preferred dates
  
• Office staff would manually contact pastors to check availability
  
• Pastors often had conflicts, requiring the process to restart
  
• Each cemetery had unique operating hours and availability
  
• Outlook calendars weren't syncing properly with ChurchDesk
  
• The Hanau region had implemented an on-call system for 20+ cemeteries that added complexity
  

For bereaved families, this resulted in uncertainty during an already difficult time. For parish staff, it meant hours spent on administrative coordination rather than pastoral care.

Discovery Process

As Product Manager and Designer, I led a comprehensive discovery process beginning in November 2024. The project champion at the Hessen church had already conducted an internal Design Thinking workshop that identified core challenges, providing valuable groundwork for our collaboration. Building on this foundation, I:

1. Analyzed Workshop Findings - Reviewed the insights from the church's internal design thinking sessions
2. Conducted Stakeholder Interviews - Engaged directly with pastors, parish administrators, and funeral directors
3. Performed Process Analysis - Documented the Hanau region's on-call system and cemetery scheduling requirements
4. Completed Competitive Analysis - Evaluated solutions like Calendly, YouCanBookMe, and Microsoft 365

A critical insight emerged: existing solutions completely missed the church's unique scheduling paradigm. The church required a hybrid approach between standard business scheduling (fixed weekly hours) and pure on-call systems (no booking component). Pastors needed to indicate availability across multiple locations with different constraints, while maintaining approval authority—a use case unaddressed in the market.

Design Approach

Rather than digitizing a broken process, we reimagined the entire experience around a core principle: maximum transparency with preserved autonomy.

The challenge required a solution that didn't exist in the market: neither standard business scheduling tools nor pure on-call systems would suffice. Churches needed something that could accommodate their unique requirements while integrating with their existing digital ecosystem.

I developed a new concept called "Availability" - a flexible calendar entry type that would:

1. Allow pastors to indicate general availability across multiple cemeteries simultaneously
   
2. Automatically respect each cemetery's unique operating hours
   
3. Consider existing calendar appointments to prevent conflicts
   
4. Generate booking requests rather than confirmed appointments
   
5. Integrate with ChurchDesk's robust form module for custom data collection
   
6. Seamlessly connect with pastors' existing Outlook calendars

The solution addressed specific ecclesiastical challenges not found in business contexts:

• Pastors planning availability six weeks in advance for multiple locations
  
• Managing 20+ cemeteries with different operating hours and rules
  
• Supporting the region's established on-call rotation system
  
• Ensuring minimum lead times while maintaining pastoral control
  
• Coordinating multiple resources (pastor, church space, chapel)

Iterative Design Process

I created a series of prototypes, starting with simple wireframes and progressing to high-fidelity mockups. Key design decisions included:

• Simplified Availability Creation:
  Pastors could create a single multi-day entry and select multiple cemetery options
  
• Cemetery-Specific Rules:
  Each cemetery's operating hours were pre-configured in the system
  
• Resource Integration:
  The system checked for conflicts with church spaces, not just pastoral schedules
  
• Language Sensitivity:
  Using "booking inquiries" rather than "bookings" to reinforce pastor autonomy
  
• Follow-up Automation:
  Building in requests for additional documentation like death certificates

After several iterations and usability tests with pastors, we refined the interface to balance comprehensive functionality with intuitive use.

Implementation & Launch Partnership

From January to April 2025, I worked closely with engineering to implement the solution, leading to a launch partnership with the Hessen regional church. My responsibilities included:

• Writing detailed functional specifications
  
• Creating UI designs and interaction patterns
  
• Developing acceptance criteria for feature development
  
• Conducting usability testing with actual users
  
• Coordinating the launch partnership with church leadership
  
• Training parish staff on the new system

Results & Impact

The new booking system transformed the funeral planning process:

• For Families:
  Funeral arrangements now confirmed within hours instead of days
  
• For Funeral Directors:
  Self-service booking portal available 24/7
  
• For Parish Offices:
  70% reduction in phone coordination time
  
• For Pastors:
  Maintained autonomy while simplifying availability management

While we designed the solution initially for the funeral service use case, we intentionally built it as a flexible framework to address multiple church-specific scheduling scenarios:

• Room Rentals: Churches can now offer their spaces for events and celebrations with automatic availability checks and integrated payment collection
  
• Pastoral Appointments: Clergy can set availability for pastoral care conversations that can be requested directly online
  
• Life Event Services: Beyond funerals, the system supports baptisms and weddings, coordinating all necessary resources and personnel
  
• Tourist Activities: Churches can offer online booking for tours and tower visits, eliminating manual coordination
  

This extensibility has dramatically increased the solution's value proposition, with churches adopting it across their operations. The project's success has led to widespread adoption beyond the Hessen region, with churches across Europe now implementing this church-specific booking solution.

Key Learnings

This project reinforced several important product design principles:

1. Identify market gaps where standard solutions fall short - The church's scheduling needs existed in an unaddressed space between business scheduling and on-call systems
   
2. Digital transformation requires process reimagining, not just digitizing existing workflows
   
3. User autonomy concerns must be addressed in the design language and interaction patterns
   
4. Complex scheduling systems need elegant simplicity to drive adoption
   
5. Solutions must integrate with existing ecosystems to minimize disruption and training
   
6. Launch partnerships provide valuable real-world validation before wider release
   

The "Availability" concept we developed is now a core component of ChurchDesk's platform, benefiting churches across Europe by bringing service-minded design to traditional institutions. By recognizing and addressing the unique needs of ecclesiastical organizations rather than forcing them into business-oriented solutions, we created a truly transformative tool that respects their distinct workflows while embracing digital efficiency.