Why calling your immigration leads beats messaging them

Picking up the phone and calling your leads might be the biggest lever an immigration firm has.

Many firms send a new lead an email or a WhatsApp, get no reply, and decide it's a bad lead. In my experience, that person often fills out another form and goes with a competitor, simply because that firm picked up the phone and called.

This post covers why calling works, why one call isn't enough, and how to tell a bad lead from a lead nobody really tried to reach.

Why does a phone call work better than a message?

A call does something a message can't. The person hears a real voice, gets their questions answered on the spot, and hangs up knowing what happens next. That builds trust in your firm right away.

Trust matters even more with leads from ads than with referrals. Someone who found you through an ad asked to be contacted, but nobody has vouched for your firm. The first contact is where they decide whether you're serious.

A message is easy to read later and forget. And while your email waits in their inbox, another firm may already be on the phone with them.

Why don't messages always reach people?

Messages often don't land where you think. Emails end up in spam or get buried under other mail. Not everyone uses WhatsApp, or has it on the number they gave you.

A call doesn't have that problem. Either they pick up, or they see a missed call and know someone from your firm tried to reach them.

Why isn't one call enough?

Not everybody answers on the first or second try. People are at work, busy with family, or living in another time zone. A missed call tells you nothing about how interested they are.

From what I've seen, a lot of leads only pick up on the third or fourth attempt. I haven't measured that across every firm, but I see it often enough that I don't consider a lead bad until someone has tried several times.

Before you call, check where they live. A call at 10 am your time can land in the middle of their night. Calling during their daytime gives you a far better chance of reaching them.

How long should you keep trying?

The firms I see getting results keep following up for at least 14 days, with a mix of calls, texts and emails.

Calls do the heavy lifting. Texts and emails fill the gaps: they tell the person who you are, why you called, and how to reach you when it suits them.

We lay out the full schedule, day by day, in the 14-day follow-up plan.

When is a lead really bad?

Some leads are bad. The number doesn't exist, the person never asked to be contacted, or their case is something your firm doesn't handle.

A lead who didn't answer one email or one WhatsApp isn't in that group yet. Before you write a lead off as bad, ask yourself three questions:

• Did anyone call them, or did they only get messages?
• Did you call at an hour that made sense where they live?
• Did you keep trying for at least two weeks?

If the answer to any of these is no, look at your follow-up before you look at the lead.