Page 37 - MELLBY_MAGASIN_EN_2024
P. 37
KLARAHILL
Klarahill celebrates
10th anniversary by
breaking records
In the space of ten years, Klarahill established itself as a well-
known, serious long-term player in the funeral industry. In 2024
the company managed to achieve all its goals – in terms of net sales,
profitability, the number of funerals and, in particular, customer
satisfaction. 2024 was quite simply a record year.
Klarahill was formed in 2014 with the ambition of consolidating “With our own Room of Remembrance for the deceased, we bring in
the funeral home industry through acquisitions. This year the people involved in the funeral and can create an interactive and
alone, Klarahill acquired 12 funeral homes, mainly in north- personalized meeting place for relatives,” says Sven Ackell.
ern Sweden. But it isn’t just acquisitions that lie behind their success.
Klarahill also opened new offices in Simrishamn (southern Sweden) Every year, more than 90,000 people die in Sweden, and up to
and Strängnäs (near Stockholm). Investing in strong local brands 1.5 million people are involved in funerals in some way. By running
with significant market potential provides greater oppor-tunities for the Room of Remembrance itself, Klarahill has control over what is
expansion and growth. offered there and can develop it according to customer wishes.
“This year’s great successes did not come about by themselves, but If we want to continue to
are the results of years of effort,” says Sven Ackell, CEO of Klarahill. grow, we need to modify our
“We focused on developing the company further based on our shared customer offering to suit a more
history, which is significantly longer than the ten years Klarahill has
existed. This makes us attractive to our customers, our employees multicultural society
and entrepreneurs wishing to sell their companies. We work with this
every day.” TRADITION AND BREAKING WITH TRENDS
Even if the funeral industry is generally seen as conservative, Klarahill
OUTPERFORMING THE PREVIOUS YEAR witnessed a clear break with certain trends in recent years. For
At the end of the year, Klarahill had 80 offices, from Kalix in the north example, it has become increasingly common to choose cremation to
of Sweden to Tomelilla in the south, and a market share of 10 percent take place prior to the actual funeral ceremony rather than after it.
(around 10,000 funerals per year). Behind the record sales and profit-
ability was successful integration. Customer satisfaction was also high, “We can see that it provides greater flexibility for the relatives re-
with Klarahill achieving a Net Promoter Score of 89/100 in 2024. garding the funeral date,” says Sven Ackell. “More and more people
also seem to prefer an urn to a coffin during the actual farewell.”
“We had a clear vision of where we wanted to be in 2025, and we
had already achieved all our goals in 2024,” says Sven Ackell. “This Funerals can take many different forms. Today, Sweden is multi
will be difficult to surpass – but our aim is always to make a slight cultural, and people have different traditions and ceremonies for
improvement and beat last year’s performance.” deaths and funerals. Klarahill needs to adapt its offering to meet
these varying needs.
STRATEGIC DIGITAL INVESTMENT
A key ingredient in Klarahill’s recipe for success in 2024 was the “We also need to get better at recruiting more broadly and chal-
creation of the company’s own online Room of Remembrance. lenging ourselves,” says Sven Ackell. “If we want to continue to grow,
Visitors can obtain information on and register for funerals, honor we need to modify our customer offering to suit a more multicultural
the deceased, make a memorial donation and send flowers. society.”
We had a clear vision of where SVEN ACKELL,
we wanted to be in 2025, and CEO
we had already achieved all our
goals in 2024
37
