Thomas Ryan: Joanna, I think you’re right. It’s like I think the base assumption is that it’s going to create situations with online GPLs in those situations. Nothing has changed from our perspective on that. We continue to work through that. We continue to test that. I think we have about 1,000 or 1,100 and something in that ballpark at any point in time. Of our 1,500 funeral homes and GPLs online. We mix and match that and test it. We’re tiered a lot of ways that I’ve described before on previous calls. In terms of pricing tiers in particular markets, and we’re playing with that as well from starting at prices to a full premium pricing experience that’s now hopefully starting to pull in cemetery as well on the digital sites.
So no change there. If that’s the expectation that’s out there and that occurs, again, I think we’re going to be there anyway. And we don’t think that’s going to have any negative effect to our business. If anything, it’s flat to maybe even slightly positive from a preneed perspective as we move forward. From a compliance perspective, we take that extremely seriously. We have really good beefed up training already in place on compliance with the funeral rule and all the intricacies of it and such and when you give a price list to a consumer. Let’s start, though, about what we do as an industry and what we do as a company. We serve families at a real dire time in their particular lives. And so there’s obviously a human element when you’re first in touch with the family for the first time, that you have to take into account the caring and compassionate nature of our industry and our particular associates being second to none in that situation.
So then you’re starting to figure out subjectively when to introduce the GPL. And therefore, if it’s objective to start with, the compliance is going to be a little bit subjective as well, and that’s where a little bit of the gray area comes into play. We’re very proud of our training. We’re very proud of our compliance related to the FTC, and we’re very supportive of the funeral rule and want the entire industry following that particular part of the rule, and we’ll continue to do that. If something else comes down from the FTC, we’ll look at it at that particular time. But nothing new has been mentioned to us or more appropriately, we haven’t been asked to comment on anything new recently as it relates to the compliance side of the funeral rule.
Joanna Gajuk: Yes, that’s I guess a fair point. This question that were posed to the industry did not support you talk about changes to the fines or things like that. But I guess, is there any way to quantify like on average how many locations of yours get fined or found non-compliant on average? And has that kind of changed over the years? To you point about how, I guess, you’re very proud of the training that you provide to your associates?
Eric Tanzberger: Yeah. I mean, if you’re talking about from the FTC perspective, it’s very small. I think we’re well, well into compliance. I think when you look at the period of the rule itself, we may have one to two, two to three locations out of 1,500 in any particular year that may not be in some form of compliance. Again, I’m going to emphasize that, that’s subjective to some degree, because what our associates are trying to do first and foremost is care and be compassionate for that family. So it can get complicated when you’re doing that. And then, of course, at some point, you’re introducing, or the consumer is introducing price into the equation. And at that particular time is when the funeral rule and the GPL and such kicks in from that perspective.
But if you take one to three locations out of 1,500 at any particular time, and it’s a pretty long sample set. I’m talking about 30, 35 years. I think you should say that we are very, very much compliant with the funeral rule and will continue to be in our training, our culture and our tone at the top, operationally, will continue to have those results as we move forward.
Joanna Gajuk: Yeah, I appreciate it. That’s very helpful, and granted it’s a large platform. So even if it’s three locations at the higher note, you mentioned it. That’s not even that meaningful. And just last one on this one. Any indication of the timing when we will hear from FTC or there’s nothing really out there?
Thomas Ryan: I don’t have any update on their particular timing. That would be in their court.
Joanna Gajuk: Right. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Operator: This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to SCI management for closing remarks.
Thomas Ryan: Thank you everyone for being on the call today. We look forward to talking to you again with our first quarter results. Have a great week.
Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.
