The Woodland Burial Company: From Roots to Results

Set within the picturesque and peaceful Granville’s Wood in Chesterfield, The Woodland Burial Company offers a range of bespoke green burial and interment options, including family nooks, woodland burials, ash interments, tree planting, interment and burial ceremonies.

Its growth has been borne from a desire to provide greater options for families and a passion for developing and maintaining the natural space. 

We had the pleasure of speaking with Claire Lyons, Director at The Woodland Burial Company about  how they’ve transformed their operations with PlotBox.

Here are a few of our key takeaways.

If you’d like to watch the webinar in full, click here. 

A personal connection.

With a background in education, personal development and mental wellbeing, as well as green living sustainability, Claire came to the profession from a very different place.

Claire also has a very personal connection to Woodland Burial. Having lived a very green, sustainable life, she reached out following the passing of her son - with so many difficult decisions to make, she realised she knew nothing about end of life options in terms of sustainability.

With this revelation, Claire became involved with the company, learning more about how she could help to influence other people's choices - providing information and options to people at need.

From there, it was clear that for the company to grow, it needed more people with skills like Claire’s, and she soon became embedded during an exciting period of growth, developing their ethos and ways of working.

Ultimately that ethos was about providing the balance between people and the planet.

A process of growth.

Granville’s Wood, their flagship site, came to fruition when founder CEO Simon Holden’s father passed away. Simon was unhappy with the service the family received and felt that some of the traditional options in their local area didn't suit his father’s personality or the way he’d lived his life.

That experience led him to buy a woodland and decide to do it himself.

With a steep learning curve and with no funeral industry experience, this special place became a labour of love for him.

With the labour involved in maintaining the woodland, Claire and the team see themselves as a partner of sorts in restoring the woodland to its native glory. The woodland itself was a pine plantation used for growing telegraph poles and so was not a natural way for the woodland to grow.

With much pine growth, every time a tree is felled, the canopy is opened up to let light in, facilitating growth, and adding to what has become a beautiful restoration.

A unique language.

One interesting point was the terminology used by Claire - it's a nook in the woodland, for example, not a plot.

That creates something special, in terms of the actual woodland itself and its protection of the woodland itself.

The language used with families has been important in terms of how the team engages with them. The word, ‘family’, for instance - they use it because that is genuinely how they feel about them, and there is great power in that.

Spreadsheets and small beginnings.

The company started small with all of their data contained on a spreadsheet.

While it was adequate at the time, it soon became clear that it wasn't going to be able to retain all of the information they were getting in the right way.

For example - how and where to note information coming in so that it could be shared and accessed remotely by other members of staff - and in a way that would satisfy data protection requirements.

They also realised the potential of using information to better understand the needs of families - how were they to log and retain that level of knowledge? For example, where someone wants to purchase a nook close to another family member, or leave a message of thanks.

With PlotBox, all of that information is now together in one place and readily accessible.

It became clear that while the spreadsheet was good, it wasn't going to be sustainable.

While Claire and the team knew they needed something, they knew they needed the ‘right’ thing. As an investment for a small company, it was important to find something with longevity that could grow as they did. 

Work orders and process efficiencies.

Looking at making admin processes more efficient, the team saw some specific challenges and bottlenecks in their day-to-day operations.

Because they have a small team, minimising duplication and maximising their efforts was valuable. In fact, one of the reasons they chose PlotBox was that the work order module could help them to achieve that.

As Claire said,

“It was great that someone could ring in the office, say, “I want a bird box added to the nook”, and we can just put that on the system. Then our site team [can] look daily or weekly at their work orders, [and] they can do the work in whatever way works for them on site.

Then they just tick it when it's done and we can let the family know - it's just so much more efficient.”

This is in contrast to previous, when Claire would have received a call, then had to text the team who may have had to call back if there was poor reception - all of which made the process laboured.

Now, communications like that don’t have an impact on the family.

Breaking down silos.

With family records, burial records, financial information, there was a need to have a system that allowed them to bring all that together with digital mapping.

Having that central hub of information has had a huge positive impact. Claire said,

“We could have five different members of staff all accessing the one record, or adding their notes, and all of us able to access that in real-time. We're not waiting for anything to upload or for systems to catch up.”

A foundation to build on.

Having that as a foundation on which to build on as they bring new sites on was a conscious decision - helping them to get processes right now, then consider how they can roll them out effectively as part of their growth plans. Claire continued,

“It was a conscious choice to get this in place up and running, [and to] get all of the staff really comfortable with how it works in advance of the next site.

I've certainly felt that to have a new site going into operation - which obviously is a lot of work - and to take on a new database and different ways of doing things, would have been quite a lot for us all to do all at once.

So it was quite nice to have had this period of learning and trying things out.

Having used the system and gone, “Actually, this would work better”, was one of the other big advantages.”

Flexibility.

Where there is often more than one way to do something, it was an advantage for Claire and the team to think through which would work best for them. That flexibility was another key factor in their decision making. Claire said,

“It was a nice balance because we’re very open, and I think you need to be with any data transfer like this - any sort of big change - you need to be open to how you've done something up to that point may not may have worked best then…it was good to have that sort of mental challenge of [asking], “Is there a more efficient way to do that?”.

The importance of support.

The approach to implementation was very considered and supported by the PlotBox team, including those with specialism in data and mapping.

With various options considered and with a relatively small data set, rather than manually entering data, they were able to use a spreadsheet supplied by PlotBox which could be uploaded en masse.

“So we opted to do the data transfer and then manually add documents to files - there could have been other options, [but] that was what suited our needs at the time.”, Claire said,

“We had access to the test site to double check…there was a very easy system for us to raise tickets, or raise questions that someone in the team would answer.

Then, when that data transfer and the test site was running very smoothly and we were all comfortable, we signed it off. And that was incredibly smooth.”

The team then underwent some training which Claire describes as “excellent” and were then allocated their own dedicated Customer Success Manager (CSM).

Via their CSM, they’ve been able to raise questions, make suggestions, and in a collaborative way, have suggestions on what would be useful made to them

In this way, they’ve been able to amend and keep improving their ways of working.

As Claire said, “I think in a small team we're spinning lots of different plates and to have that extra support felt really nice - rather than just an, “Off you go…you're on your own now.”.”

Claire believes that because they’re all using the one system that they feel more like a team.

Remote access.

Because the team work from home, in the past, there was sometimes a disconnect - for example - multiple staff speaking with the same person in arranging a funeral.

Now, all of that happens instantly. Relevant notes or documents can be added in real time, which in Claire’s words, “Has been really lovely for our team to just feel [like] we're all together, and working to a common goal. It's definitely made us more efficient.”

According to Claire, it has also reduced wasted time, making them challenge how they do things.

She said, “[It’s] been really valuable to reassess and think about things, and challenge ourselves to be a bit more creative…I think it's making us quite excited about the growth.”

Now, for Claire and the team, the idea of taking on a second site isn’t as daunting, having a new system embedded providing a repeatable process and model that can be re-deployed.

Next steps.

The team are excited to share that they may have an offer accepted on a new woodland, with a potential third in their sights.

While it’s undoubtedly challenging, it will allow them to provide even more options - doing what’s right for families.

That continued growth is something that technology will be at the core of.

Practical tips.

Finally, Claire was kind enough to share some practical tips for others considering digital transformation:

“Understand you and your business in some way, and have similar values [in terms of] ways of working. 

I think that's really important. I think it's also really important…to be open - [that] this is going to be a change…and things will be different…embrace that as a real opportunity.”

Claire continued,

“Review how you do things rather than a negative comment on [them]...you need everyone on board - this is going to impact everybody [so] all of us have to be actively involved in this [and] willing to learn.”

[I would also] ask your questions of people who've been through that process…try and get some background on how these people operate how they manage those processes, because you know your data and your families are…your whole business…we need to have confidence that the people we're working with are just as mindful about their [data] security as you are.”

Click below to view the webinar in full.