An answering service for immigration solicitors has to understand the clock.
Immigration calls arrive the moment a Home Office decision lands, often with a deadline already running and a frightened person on the line. Klyp for Solicitors answers the calls your team cannot reach, in your firm's name, takes the reference and the dates that matter, marks anything urgent and sends your team a summary within 60 seconds. It never gives immigration advice.
Every missed call in immigration work has a date attached.
A conveyancing enquiry can wait until Monday. An immigration enquiry usually cannot, because the caller is counting days from a letter they may not fully understand. None of these clocks pauses because your line was engaged.
is the time an appellant in the UK has to get a notice of appeal to the First-tier Tribunal after the decision is sent. Outside the UK it is 28 days from receipt. A caller who rings on day nine and gets voicemail may ring someone else on day ten.
Tribunal Procedure (First-tier Tribunal) (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Rules 2014, rule 19.is the guaranteed minimum notice before an enforced removal. The guidance also says a detained person must have access to a telephone to instruct and contact legal representatives. That phone call may be to you.
Home Office, Enforced removals: notice periods, version 5.0.was the year-on-year rise in immigration and asylum complaints accepted by the Legal Ombudsman in 2025/26, the largest increase of any area of law. Across all areas, 46% of complaints were about communication or delay.
Legal Ombudsman, 2025/26 annual complaints data and insight.The pattern is familiar to any immigration partner: calls bunch up on the days decisions are posted, and a complaint about "nobody told me what was happening" often starts with a call that was never picked up. Evening and weekend calls are covered on our out of hours answering page; this page is about the daytime overflow, when every fee earner is already on a call.
From decision letter to a briefed adviser, without the gap.
The assistant does not replace your reception. It takes the calls that would otherwise ring out: when every line is busy, when nobody picks up within the rings you set, or when the office is closed. The caller hears your firm's name. If they ask whether they are speaking to a person, it tells them it is an AI assistant.
It asks for what your adviser will need first
Name, best number, and whether that number is safe to ring back. Existing client or new, and if existing the reference or adviser's name. What has arrived: a decision, a tribunal date, a visa expiry, a detention. Where the person is now. And the date on any letter, read out and repeated back.
It sorts urgent from important
You set the trigger words in advance. Detention, removal directions, a hearing this week or a visa expiring in days are marked urgent at the top of the summary. A progress chase on a pending application is taken courteously and queued for the usual call-back.
It briefs the right person
Each call becomes a short email to the inbox or duty role you name: who rang, what has happened, every date they gave, where the person is and when to call. Booking the call-back into a diary and texting the caller a confirmation are coming soon; today the summary is what your team acts on.
When the caller is not the client
The first call is often made by a relative, an employer or a friend ringing on someone else's behalf, sometimes because the applicant's English is limited. The 2021 Census recorded 5.1 million people in England and Wales whose main language is not English, including 880,000 who could not speak it well and 161,000 who could not speak it at all. The assistant speaks clearly, repeats the details back, and records who is calling and who the matter is about.
Office for National Statistics, Language, England and Wales: Census 2021.Taking a message is not immigration advice. Keeping it that way is the job.
Section 84 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 says no person may provide immigration advice or immigration services unless they are a qualified person. Your firm is. An answering assistant is not, and it should never behave as though it were. The compliance work is in the script: what it asks, what it refuses to say, and how fast the message reaches someone qualified.
Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, section 84.No advice, no opinions, no predictions
It will not say what a letter means, whether someone qualifies, what evidence to send, or how long a case might take. If a caller pushes, it says the adviser will go through their options, and takes the details.
Details, then hand-over
The regulator's practice note says that simply signposting a person to an authorised adviser is not a regulated activity, and that general information applicable to many people is not immigration advice. Taking a name, a reference and a date sits well inside that.
Immigration Advice Authority, Immigration assistance practice note, August 2025."The caller says", never "you qualify"
If your firm holds a legal aid contract, it can ask the screening facts you choose, such as whether the caller receives a passporting benefit. It records the answers as the caller stated them and leaves eligibility to you.
Processor terms you can show the SRA
Call data is handled under a written data processing agreement, is not used to train models, and is deleted within 30 days of the contract ending. See our SRA data sheet, the data processing agreement and our guide to the SRA's warning notice on AI.
Immigration firms usually ask these three things.
What if someone rings from a detention centre?
It treats the call as urgent. It takes the person's name, the centre they are in, any reference and the date on any notice served, confirms the best way to reach them or a relative, and sends the summary to your duty contact marked urgent. It does not comment on the removal itself. If your firm does not take detention cases, you tell it where to signpost the caller instead.
Can it take calls in other languages?
Today it answers in English. It speaks clearly, slows down when asked, and is patient with a relative or friend ringing on someone's behalf. Other languages are something we are testing, not something we promise yet.
What does it cost for a small immigration practice?
From £99 a month, no contract. There are three tiers at £99, £199 and £399, each with a 30-day money-back guarantee and no per-call charge, so a decision-day surge costs the same as a quiet week. Pricing is on the Klyp for Solicitors page.
Not sure how many calls you are losing on busy days? Try the missed call calculator for law firms.