Never make them look for it
A family reading a funeral director's website has one action available to them: making contact. They may be ready on the first screen or on the fourth page, and they may be ready at four in the morning. The number has to be there whenever the moment comes, without them scrolling, searching or opening a Contact page.
Most life events sites put the number in the footer and a form behind a menu item. Here is what to do instead, and how to do it without the site feeling like it is chasing anyone.
The number
In the header, on every page. A button, not text, reading the number itself. On a phone it opens the dialler in one tap.
<a href="tel:+441234567890" class="call">
Call 01234 567890
</a>Full international format in the link so it dials from anywhere, local format in the visible text so it reads naturally.
With the hours beside it. This is the part that gets left off and the part that decides whether someone calls. If you answer at any hour, say "Answered 24 hours, every day" under the button. If you do not, say the hours plainly and say what happens outside them. A family who does not know whether anyone will answer often does not try.
Again at the end of every page. After the price list, after the what happens next steps, after the team page. Nobody should scroll back up.
On phones, a quiet fixed bar. A slim bar at the foot of the screen with Call and Message. Restrained styling, no colour that shouts, padding for the phone's home indicator, and hidden when the message form itself is on screen so it does not cover the send button.
The message form
Some people cannot speak. They are crying, they are at work, they are at a hospital bedside, or they are simply not ready to say the words out loud. A short form is not a lesser option for them, it is the only one.
Keep it to five fields: name, phone, email, where they are calling from or about, and a message box. Nothing mandatory that is not needed. No dropdown asking them to choose a service. No marketing consent tick as a condition of sending.
Under the button, one line: how quickly you reply, and the number again for anything urgent. After sending, a page that says the message arrived, when to expect a reply, and the number one more time.
Twenty-four hour cover, described honestly
If you offer it, say it everywhere: header, home page, what happens next page, contact page, footer. If a call out of hours reaches an answering service before it reaches you, say that too, and say what the service will do. Families forgive a call handler. They do not forgive being surprised by one.
If you do not offer it, do not imply it. An out of hours voicemail should say when you open, what a caller should do if a death has just happened, and that nothing else needs to be decided tonight.
The other routes
- Email, published as a real address rather than a form only, because some people want a record of what they sent.
- Address and map, with parking and access, because families arrive with elderly relatives.
- A message app button where you use one and someone watches it. Do not offer a channel nobody monitors.
- Booking a consultation for people planning ahead, which is a different intent entirely and belongs on the planning ahead page rather than beside the urgent number. A will writing practice and a memorial mason lean on booking more heavily than a funeral director does.
Tone
Everything about the contact elements should be quiet. No countdown, no popup, no chat window that opens itself and asks whether it can help, no "book now" language, no red urgency. A funeral site that behaves like a retail site reads as indecent, and families notice within seconds.
One number, one gentle form, stated hours, and nothing that moves on its own.
Accessibility
Contact elements are where accessibility failures cost most. Give buttons a visible text label rather than an icon alone, real contrast, a tap target of at least forty-four pixels, a focus outline for keyboard users, and a label the screen reader reads sensibly ("Call Smith and Sons on 01234 567890"). Form fields need visible labels, not placeholder text that vanishes. Many of these readers are in their seventies and eighties.
Privacy
Form submissions about a death are sensitive personal data. Send them to a monitored inbox or your practice software over an encrypted connection, not to a public spreadsheet. Keep them only as long as needed. Say in one line under the form what happens to the information and link the privacy notice. Do not add anyone who sends a message to a mailing list.
Testing and counting
Monthly, from a phone: tap the header number and confirm the dialler opens with the right number, send a test message and confirm it arrives and that the reply address works, check the out of hours message, and check the fixed bar does not cover anything. Count taps on the number and form submissions by page, so you know which pages produce first contact. The what happens next page usually leads by a wide margin.
Where this sits
A number on every page with the hours beside it, twenty-four hour cover stated where it is offered, and a gentle form for those who cannot call is one of the six things in every funeral and life events website we build. It is not persuasion. It is being reachable at the hour someone needs you.