About 20 years ago I met a family law attorney in San Bernardino California when he and the other members of his office became Interbill customers. He passed away early in his life. He was an avid bicyclist and a former radio announcer. He had a great voice. I was doing a lot of mountain biking at the time (still am to a lesser extent) and he was too. We did some cycling together in the San Jose mountains, Santa Barbara and the mountains above San Bernardino.
We talked a lot. San Bernardino is not a wealthy part of California. Almost all of his customers were struggling financially and, of course, the dissolution of a marriage hardly improves that situation.
When this family law attorney started to use Interbill he said to me that he was not looking to improve his collections because they were perfect (I have heard this many times but this time it was true). He had setup elaborate ways of making sure each client could afford to pay and did. What Interbill did for him was automate the process and we learned a lot from that experience.
He could see that I was skeptical when he told me that he had no collection problems in the family law business in one of the worst economies in the State of California, so he asked me to watch and I did every month for a year and I was amazed. Every single client paid very month during that year that I scrutinized his accounts receivables and collections.
This attorney was very optimistic, friendly and engaging. He never shied away from talking payment with his clients and he took the shame away from not being able to pay in full and he worked on ways his clients could pay and be proud they could pay. Of course, he could not spend a lot of time doing this, so his systems were crucial. He also was nuts about cycling and spent a lot of his time away from the office on one of his bikes.
His office continues to use Interbill, they still enjoy the fruits of his systems and positive attitude about getting paid.
In the next couple of weeks I will blog about each step of his billing process and how Interbill has adapted these processes for other family law attorneys.
Happy New Year – Get out your Billing and Payment Expectation Resolutions. May I suggest getting paid by every client in a way that strengthens your client / attorney relationships.
Interbill can help you with billing and getting paid. We can make available to you ideas and systems developed by over 5000 attorneys during the 42 years Interbill has been in business. Please visit our website www.interbill.com, give us a call at 800.733.9933, or email info@interbill.com.
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