The importance of your "billing package"

As you've probably noticed from some of my recent posts, my firm has been doing quite a bit of thinking about billing/collection policy. Actually it's a very thorough re-vamp that I'll speak about more in weeks to come...it's not totally finalized. Let me be frank, our receivables have been too high and we need to be more hard-assed in our billing/collection.

One thing I'm going to change slightly is our billing package that our typical client receives each month. Currently, a typical client of our firm gets their itemized bill with descriptive explanation of all work done on their case and time spent and amount due. We attach a credit card fill-in form for client's that want to pay by credit card and a self-addressed stamped envelope. Nothing too earth shattering and likely fairly similar to most lawyers. The one addition to our billing package is now going to be a transferable coupon for a free legal consultation or 50% off of representation in a residential real estate transaction (the only thing I'm debating is what's the most attractive and feasible discount to provide). Essentially I'm copying what I see in virtually any bills we get...there's always additional advertising enclosed. By making the coupon transferable our current clients can give the coupon to their friends.