An AI assistant for migration agencies

A migration agency gets enquiries from every time zone, often in several languages, and most of them arrive before anyone has paid for advice. Some are simple: what is the consultation fee, does your fee include the visa charge, do you have evening appointments. Many are not: am I eligible, how many points do I have, how long will it take. Botsmith answers the first kind from your own published pages, around the clock, and refuses the second kind every time by sending people to a paid consultation.

Two kinds of question, handled differently

Try a sample agency

The assistant below belongs to Southern Cross Migration, an agency we invented for this page. The fees, address, phone number and staff are made up, and nothing it says is immigration advice. Ask what a partner visa application costs through them, whether the fee includes government charges, or which languages they speak. Then ask whether you are eligible for a visa and see how it declines.

Where the line sits

For a migration agency, a chatbot that is helpful in the wrong way is a liability. An answer about eligibility, points or processing time given to a stranger, without their documents, is advice without the full picture. So the rule is simple: the assistant talks about your agency and never about the visitor's case.

Botsmith gives you two layers to hold that line. It answers only from content you provide, and says it is not sure instead of improvising. Then you add standing instructions in plain English, which apply to every reply as soon as they are saved. The demo agency's tell it: never give immigration advice; do not say whether anyone is eligible, which visa to choose, how many points they would score, how long an application will take or what to write in a form; send every individual question to a registered agent by offering the consultation.

When we built the demo, the first version answered "which languages do you speak?" by describing its own ability to reply in any language, not the agency's staff. We moved the staff languages into a separate short entry in its knowledge, and it answered correctly from then on. Expect to find a few gaps like that in your own first week, and to fix most of them by adding or splitting content rather than by adding rules.

Clients who do not write in English

Botsmith replies in the language the visitor writes in, from content that can be in English. A prospective client can ask about your fees in Mandarin or Hindi at midnight their time and get the answer your English fees page gives. That is often the first contact an overseas client has with an agency, and it happens before your office opens.

What it does not do

• It does not connect to ImmiAccount, your case management system or your calendar, and it cannot see the status of any application.
• It does not take payment for a consultation. It gives your booking link or phone number.
• It does not know policy or fee changes until your own pages change. Keep your fees page current, especially after 1 July, and re-read the site from the dashboard when you update it.
• It does not check documents. It can list what your site says is usually needed; the agent confirms the real list.

What it costs

A single-office agency fits Starter at US$19 a month: one bot and 2,000 messages a month. An agency with separate sites for different markets or languages can use Pro at US$49 a month for five bots and 10,000 messages. The trial is 14 days and needs no card. Before you go live, read how to write instructions for a support bot and the privacy points to check, or see the law firm and accounting versions of this page.