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Why Choose an Iles Family Funeral Home?
The purpose of this section is to explain what makes Iles Funeral Homes different and as a result a better choice. The summary bullets are:
- We Encourage Families to Personalize Funeral Tributes
- We are Family Owned & Operated
- We Have an Excellent Staff
- Our Business Practices are based upon the "Golden Rule"
- We Operate Six Conveniently Located Facilities Serving Central Iowa
- We Offer an Excellent Value for the Money
- We back this up with Testimonials from families we've served and a No Regrets Service Guarantee
Personalized Funerals
Ten years ago, making funeral arrangements was much simpler. Then, the general practice was to simply follow what had been previously done for past funerals conducted within the family. While this made the family's decision process easier, too often the funeral lacked personalization and as a result felt sterile and cold. Recognizing that this type of funeral service was not meeting customer needs, Iles Funeral Homes sought to help our customers create a personalized tribute that celebrates the life of the deceased and preserves cherished memories. Our hope is that no two funerals would be identical, just as no two people are identical. Since creating a personalized tribute can be much more involved than simply following in the footsteps of past funerals, we recognized that families would need more assistance and service. We provide this by increasing the amount of time our directors spend helping families, increasing the menu of options we offer to create a funeral service, and also by employing specialized staff such as printed materials and video production designers. Our objective is to educate the family as to what is possible and then let the family's creativity take over. We believe this is perhaps the number one reason as to what makes Iles different and we have invested heavily to deliver to this objective. Customers have responded enthusiastically to these new offerings resulting in increased customer satisfaction with our services and increased perception of value relative to our charges. Statistics aside, the feedback we get from families and friends alike tells us we are on the right track. "The tribute to the deceased was truly fitting -- I don't know how it could have been better." That is what we like to hear, and there is evidence that personalized funeral services help families better cope with their grief.
Family Owned & Operated
During the past twenty years, publicly owned corporations have sought to consolidate the funeral business much like what has occurred in other businesses. Until recently, this consolidation was occurring at a feverish rate, resulting by the year 2000 in one funeral in three in the United States conducted at a funeral home owned by a publicly held funeral corporation. Recently, consolidation ground to a near halt, because the corporate consolidated funeral homes have not done well and as a result can no longer afford to continue their acquisition binge. Their demise can be linked to operating these businesses to satisfy the stock market's desire for continuously increasing revenues and profits, usually at the expense to customers in the form of high prices not justified by their quality of service. Many funeral homes in Central Iowa are owned and operated by these large publicly owned corporations, and if you are interested, the list of these can be found by clicking here.
Iles Funeral Homes is owned and operated by the second generation of the Iles Family to do so. Both of the current owners are sons of the founder Charles W. Iles. The current owners are Mark H. Iles, President and General Manager, and C. Michael Iles, Manager of Finance and Administration. Mark & Mike have sought to continue and enhance the philosophy of service and treatment of our customers originally developed by their father, Chuck. They also have sought to continue and enhance the family's involvement in the community based upon the example established by Chuck Iles and his father (the late Charles F. Iles) before him. Lastly, Mark & Mike have sought to attract and retain the best funeral directors and embalmers in the industry, a business philosophy also employed by Chuck. After all, it was Chuck Iles' philosophy of service, treatment of customers, involvement in the community and quality of staff that caused Westover to prosper from its inception in 1960.
If we were asked to recommend a funeral provider in another town or city, we would generally recommend a family owned funeral home because: 1) They provide better service due to the presence of local ownership. 2) Decision making associated with responding to customer needs is better because those decisions can be made locally and quickly. 3) The money customers pay for funeral services stays local rather than flowing to remote corporate managers and stockholders. 4) Local owners tend to be more involved in the community, and many times assume positions of leadership.
Excellent Staff
Many of the things that make us different are possible due to our size, having grown the firm to six locations serving hundreds of families each year. While many good things come to pass as a result of our size, the challenge is to deliver consistently outstanding service across our six locations every day of the year. In delivering our service to a family, it would be common for the family to interact with a dozen or more of our employees, so the quality of our staff is paramount and considered to be our most valuable asset. A funeral is an event that involves proper execution of a great number of details, with no opportunity to "do it over". Flawless execution allows the family to relax and focus on celebrating the live of the decedent. Our management philosophy aimed at having an excellent staff is as follows: 1) Attract the best and brightest in our business, those that truly have a heart to serve others. 2) Retain our staff by treating them as well as we desire for them to treat you our customer. 3) Give them autonomy to serve you in the best manner possible, having access to the resources of the firm as if they were an owner. 4) Recognize and reward their hard work and dedication towards serving you.
The result of this is that we feel we have the best Embalming and Preparation staff in Central Iowa, aimed at caring for the human remains of the decedent in a most competent manner. Many customers have commented on the quality of our body preparation. We believe we have the best Funeral Directors in Central Iowa, who are allowed to take the time to deliver personalized service knowing that providing this level of funeral service will take more time and effort. Many of our customers have commented on the caring and personal service provided by their Funeral Director. And, we believe we have the best support staff in Central Iowa, from the employees that answer our phones to those that deliver flowers, drive cars and greet those entering our facilities. To take any of their contributions for granted is a mistake, because it is only as a result of the smooth delivery of many small things that our service is judged excellent. Ninety-five percent of our customers rate the quality of our services as Excellent, but our culture dictates that we desire to continuously improve.
Our Business Practices
Simply put, we aim to treat our customers like we wish to be treated when we are the customer, which is fairly and with the customer's best interests in mind. Sometimes, when dealing with companies that provide us services, we are disappointed when we don't get treated as well as we seek to treat our customers. You probably can recite an example in which you received poor service, and much has been written about the general decline in the quality of service provided by business in America. But you won't find that to be the case at Iles Funeral Homes. The quality of our service determines our future, and fair and equitable treatment while putting our customer's interests first is the cornerstone of our service philosophy.
Our Facilities
Our desire is to offer facilities convenient to where you live, work or worship. We operate three locations in Des Moines - Westover on the west side, Dunn's near downtown and the Fleur Avenue corridor, and Grandview Park located on Hubbell Avenue in East Des Moines. Also, we operate rural funeral homes serving Dallas and Boone Counties. With these six locations, we can provide a convenient funeral home to serve most Central Iowans.
Equally important to where the funeral home is located is features of the facility designed to deliver our services. For example, ample parking, handicap access, spacious visitation rooms, warm interior décor, play areas for children, reception rooms for funeral lunches, designated smoking areas and updated sound systems are examples of facility features that we offer. If the facility meets your needs, you don't notice it because it is doing its part in providing our services. If something is deficient, however, you notice it immediately and it can become very distracting. In designing, maintaining and improving our facilities, our goal is that our facilities support and enhance the overall quality of our service.
Value for the Money
Are we the funeral home offering the lowest published prices? No. Do we seek to be the funeral provider offering the lowest published prices? No. So, why would Iles be the best choice for value? When you pay our service charge, we work to serve you and your best interests, with no hidden agenda. When you seek a provider of service offering the lowest published prices, you will generally receive the amount of service you paid for and moreover, will usually not have the provider acting with your best interests in mind. Customers in this scenario have to beware of bait and switch where the bait is the low price, with the switch coming in the form of adding this and that to your bill so that your total expenditure is nowhere near what you expected. If value is your biggest concern, then we welcome comparing the quality of our facilities, services and caring staff to any provider you wish to consider. After an apples to apples comparison, there will be no doubt in your mind who provides the best value. And, we back this up with our No Regrets Service Guarantee.
Any business needs to be profitable to survive, and we set our prices to allow us to be profitable and to invest in maintaining and improving our business. With prices set in this manner, we have no reason to have a hidden agenda and this fact combined with our philosophy regarding how we treat customers means that we are working for your best interests, not our own. Competently meeting your needs at a fair price you approved ahead of time is how we aim to deliver high value for the amount you decide to spend. Also, despite our desire to provide only the best quality service, we can deliver funerals at a price to meet your budget.
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