Bradford O'Keefe Funeral Home

Family Owned Versus Chains

During the past twenty years, publicly owned corporations have sought to consolidate the funeral business much like what has occurred in other businesses.  This consolidation trend was occurring at a feverish rate resulting in one funeral out of every three in the United States, being conducted at a funeral home owned by a publicly held funeral corporation in the year 2000. This trend came to a screeching halt because the corporate consolidators were overpaying for acquisitions due to competition.  The reversal of that trend can be linked to operating these businesses to satisfy the stock market’s desire for continuously increasing revenues and profits, usually at the expense of its customers in the form of higher prices and reduced services to cut costs. Several funeral homes in South Mississippi are owned and operated by these large publicly owned corporations, and if you are interested, the list of these can be found in the box to the right.

Our Business Practices

Simply put, we aim to treat our families as 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 Bradford-O’Keefe Funeral Homes. The quality of our service determines our future, and fair and equitable treatment while putting our families’ 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 currently serve families in Harrison and Jackson Counties, with funeral homes in Downtown Biloxi, West Biloxi, Downtown Gulfport, Orange Grove, and Ocean Springs.

Equally important to where the funeral home is located are the features of the facility designed to deliver our services.  For example, ample parking, handicap access, spacious visitation rooms, and warm interior décor 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?  Not necessarily.  Do we seek to be the funeral provider offering the lowest published prices?  Not necessarily.   So, why would Bradford-O’Keefe 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.

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 our families 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.