24th September 2021

Introducing the new website of your local family funeral directors!

Here it is, Markham Funeral Service’s brand-new website!!!

Andrew and I felt it would be well worthwhile adding a BLOG page to the website, for updates on anything we feel may be important to the visitors to our website, as well as giving a little insight into the life and times of a Husband and Wife team of Funeral Directors! We will aim to post a little update every now and again, either as we get any news that is relevant or just to say HELLO!!!!

The past few months have been very busy with getting the new website up and running (with a special thanks to the wonderful Keith Snowdon of Keith Snowdon Web Design, who has put up with our ever-changing corrections!!!) and we are proud to present it to you all!

One of the biggest changes that will be seen is the introduction of our ‘Standardised Pricelist’

’WHAT IS A STANDARDISED PRICELIST?!’ I hear you say? Fear not…. for I will explain!

For just over 2 years, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has been intricately investigating the Funeral Industry as a whole in the United Kingdom in response to ever growing concern over pricing structures and lack of transparency throughout the Industry both from Funeral Operators and Crematoria.

Believe it or not, a HUGE percentage of the UK’s Funeral Director firms (both Corporate and Independent) do not have a pricelist. Even scarier…. The Funeral Industry is COMPLETELY UN REGULATED. Meaning standards and procedures are not checked by any governing body and ANYONE can legally open up and begin operating as a Funeral Director despite a lack of facilities or knowledge and experience.

Firms such as ourselves can chose to apply for membership with a governing body such as The National Association of Funeral Directors Or SAIF (National Society of Allied Independent Funeral Directors) who have vigorous (and rightly so!) standards inspections and a very strict code of conduct that must be adhered to in order to be accepted for membership. However, for those who choose not to be part of an industry governing body association…. A company may operate as it wishes….UNTIL NOW.

In June the CMA published its Funerals and Market Investigation Order 2021 of which the full document can be read below if you wish:
The Funerals Market Investigation Order 2021 (publishing.service.gov.uk)

This order requires EVERY Funeral Director in the country to adhere to a new set of regulations, one of which is providing customers with a standardised pricelist that the CMA has produced for a set list of services amongst other information such as crematoria pricing and a list of additional products and services…WITH PRICES. This became law as of Thursday 16th September 2021 and requires all firms to display their pricelist on their website and the other required information (ultimate owner of business etc) which we feel is a great step forward for customers!!!! We have always stated our prices everywhere via our own pricelists however it has been a little tricky to breakdown the pricing in the format the CMA require. We are required to put a price even if we do not charge for a service…such as Chapel Visiting or Ashes Collection and Delivery so please excuse the strange £1 fee! We do not charge! We hope that our explanation below the standardised pricelist goes into a little more depth as to what we offer and explains it a little easier. As always we do not offer package deals but instead offer our professional service as one price and then allow you to add as much or as little as you wish, we do not charge extra for organising extra touches! Every funeral should be unique to your loved one in our eyes.

Enough of that anyway!

Please always remember that we run our open-door policy at our premises. We encourage anyone to pop in for a complete tour if anyone wishes to do so. Our mortuary is not out of bounds, we allow you to come and look everywhere as we are so proud of what we have built in our beautiful little barn. Top of the range facilities should be a MUST with any firm in our opinion.

Finally….. Do you have any thoughts or suggestions for the website? Anything you feel may be useful? We are always open to any ideas! Feel free to email anytime on info@markhamfuneralservice.co.uk to give us some feedback, we would be delighted to hear from you.

If you would like some help please call us on 01728 747795 or email us here

How to find Markham Funeral Services:

Markham Funeral Service | Woodbridge | Suffolk