Our Mission Statement
“Memoria has a mission to provide exceptional standards of service, facility and products to the bereaved families that use its funeral directing services, crematoria, gardens of remembrance or financial & legal services. This is because it is not only commercially sensible to do so but also because it is an essential act of human decency towards people who have just lost a much loved member of their family or friend. Bereavement is the price we must all pay for the joy of loving and being loved. The loss of a loved one is the most stressful, unhappy and traumatic experience that we will face in life. We at Memoria realise that we are unable to eradicate such pain but we also know it is our responsibility and duty to be as efficient, kind, respectful and polite as humanly possible to our clients at their time of grief, and thereafter when they return to remember their cherished relatives or friends. Therefore it is our aim to provide immaculately clean and tidy facilities in tranquil and beautiful surroundings attended by people who are sincerely dedicated to our mission, and who take a great pride in their work as a result.”
Customer Service
Many businesses claim to be customer-centric, but very few operate in such a sensitive environment as we do across Memoria.
We selected reviews.io as our standard method of customer satisfaction recording for two key reasons:
- Every piece of customer feedback (good or bad) goes directly into the system – we cannot interfere with that process in any way.
- Only reviews that are proven to be about a fictitious service are ever removed.
Every single customer report that does not carry a 5-star rating is immediately passed to our Community Engagement Director for formal action. The same process is applied to any non-perfect reviews from customers from any other source. We do not rest until we have done everything in our power to deliver total satisfaction to all clients that use our facilities.
Digitalisation in the Workplace
Memoria operates the very latest in Cemetery and Crematoria technologies. We use 2 bookings systems: Plot box and Epitaph. Both systems offer an open, easy to access, and transparent online facility, showing very clearly available slots and outlining every technology the locations have to offer, which can then be reserved.
Memoria have teamed up with one of the UK’s most advanced media distributers to offer a comprehensive high-definition sound and pictorials broadcast system, that also allows families to take control of a 5g streaming option and offer their friends and families the opportunity to watch the service live from anywhere in the world at the click of a link. The system also provides them with a permanent moving record of their loved one’s service. Every Memoria location allows clients to choose the colour of mood lighting that suits. We have even installed the option of having a high-resolution image projected above the catafalque.
Extra-curricular Projects
Memoria has embraced what is the UK’s military largest catchment area and linked with the Royal British Legion to offer the most sympathetic of services to ex-military personnel, a service which then directly contributes back to the associated charities supporting them and their families.
Podcasts, Videos, Social Media and Community Support
Memoria has been at the forefront of industry innovation, producing innumerable community videos, supporting local charities and hospices, community radio stations, community networking groups, and local suppliers. More recently a six series Podcast was produced to enable everyone to better understand both the options and costs associated with a modern funeral. The Memoria Podcast series ‘The loss of a loved one’ can be found here:
It is also available free on Spotify and Amazon with a simple title search.
Our YouTube channel is regularly updated with video content:
Multi-ecumenical Meetings
Memoria has directed its Community Engagement programme towards diversity. We have engaged in several inter-faith projects. We have tailored cultural options to every faith from every part of the UK. In 2020, the most difficult of years, they have donated our facilities and staff to providing open air prayers, remembrance services, and Christmas events. Memoria also recorded services of remembrance for their You Tube channels to make them accessible to everyone. The company have wider plans to provide different cultural burial options, and a special memorial facility for the armed forces.
Professional Improvement
Memoria’s staff are trained to the highest levels of customer service provision, widely recognised throughout the industry as delivering the best levels of customer service to both funeral directors and families. Each member of our staff is trained carefully for a number of weeks before dealing directly with bereaved families. We run a multi-tasking, inter-changeable business model in Memoria which means that every staff member is trained in every single discipline within the crematorium from chapel attending to administration to cremation to grounds maintenance. This is to ensure that every team member can support each other through the pressure points of each day. Once training has been completed, all staff members have a Personal Development Plan (PDP) which tracks their development and professional development. This is assessed closely during 6-month probationary periods and then checked by our Director of training and standards on an ongoing basis.
They are members of the Institute of Crematorium and Cemetery Management and Federation of Burial and Cremation authority and conform with every aspect of its charter.
Charity Work
In November 2022 Memoria celebrated the launch of its new charity partnership with the UK’s leading dementia research charity, Alzheimer’s Research UK. To date Memoria has donated over £218,000 to help fund the charity’s groundbreaking dementia research which seeks to make breakthroughs in the diagnosis, prevention, treatment and cure of this terrible condition.
Memoria has been avid supporters of Macmillan Cancer Support, and we’ve been working in partnership to raise over £340,000 to support people living with cancer since March 2021. This fantastic amount has been raised mainly through our environmental processes, which have also supported Child Bereavement UK and Oasis Community Centre charities to name but a few.
Future
Memoria has always been at the forefront of technology in this industry to ensure that the environment is as protected by the cremation process as possible. To this end, Memoria were the first operator in the UK to install ‘mercury abatement’ filtration to our cremators in 2005. Now, we are the first operator to bring new-age state of the art electric cremators to the UK with the first installation at our North Oxfordshire facility in 2020. The new cremator technology is powered by renewable energy sources, which produces 95% less carbon dioxide emissions compared to a gas cremator.
We have a commitment to continue to work on these technologies with cremator manufacturers so that these improvements can continue to be made and we can support the UK government’s target of being carbon neutral by 2050. This is the first step for the industry to fulfil its environmental obligations.
The company is also driving down the costs for families by creating a very clear accessible cremation service model that shows every option for every client, affordable high-quality funerals in an unrushed and lovingly cared for environment.