Should a collection agency use offshore collectors, and how do offshore teams compare with onshore ones?

The short answer

There is no benchmark that tells you whether offshore collectors will do better or worse on your accounts, so we don’t quote one. What you can do is compare the two fairly on your own accounts: the same kinds of account, split at random, in the same weeks. Then compare cost per dollar collected, not cost per hour.

Check what your clients allow before you start, and keep an eye on the onshoring proposals in Congress, covered below.

Why raw comparisons mislead

In our experience offshore and onshore teams on the same floor are often given different work: one team gets early-stage or low-balance accounts, the other the harder or higher-value ones, or one team takes overflow at certain hours. Compare their raw results and you compare their accounts as much as their collectors.

The same trap catches any comparison of groups that work different mixes: the overall figures can point one way while every like-for-like comparison points the other. Why collection results swing from month to month explains how, and Is it the collector or the accounts? applies it to individual collectors.

How to compare them fairly

1. Split the same kinds of account at random between the two teams, so neither gets the better paper.
2. Run both in the same weeks, so the season, the economy and the placements hit both sides equally.
3. Measure what matters: dollars collected per account contacted, the share of promises kept, complaints and quality review results, not just contacts or promises.
4. Work out cost per dollar collected for each team, including training, management, quality review and the cost of people leaving.
5. Read it over months, not weeks, and agree the measures before the start. How to prove a routing change worked.

In our view the result will often differ by kind of account: one team better on some accounts, the other on others. That is more useful than one overall winner.

What to weigh beyond the result

• What your clients allow. In our experience many creditors set out in their contracts where their accounts may be worked and by whom. Check before any account moves. What a creditor needs to approve.
• Hours. In our experience, any team that covers US calling hours from a distant time zone is working nights, and in our view night work can add to turnover and absence. How to staff a collection floor.
• Training and oversight. US collection rules, client rules and your own procedures have to be trained, monitored and audited wherever the collector sits. Your compliance team decides how.
• Data security. Where account data is accessed from, and under what controls. SOC 2 and agent matching.
• Trust on the call. In our view a consumer who doesn’t trust the caller is less likely to pay, whichever team the caller is on. How collectors build trust on a call.

The onshoring bill

On 29 July 2025 Senator Ruben Gallego, with Senator James Justice as cosponsor, introduced the Keep Call Centers in America Act of 2025 (S. 2495, 119th Congress). According to the Congressional Research Service summary, the bill would:

• require customer service agents to disclose their location at the start of a customer service communication and, if they are outside the United States, tell the consumer they can ask to be transferred immediately to a US-based agent;
• require businesses that use AI in customer service to disclose it, and let the consumer ask for a US-based human agent;
• have the Department of Labor keep a list of businesses above a certain size that move a call centre abroad or contract call centre work overseas, and make businesses on the list generally ineligible for federal grants and federally guaranteed loans.

The bill was referred to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, and when we checked on 23 October 2026 that referral was the latest action recorded. It is a proposal, not law. Whether it, or anything like it, would apply to collection calls is a question for your counsel. BestPair does not provide legal advice.

Where agent matching fits

Agent matching doesn’t decide where your collectors sit. BestPair sends each account to the eligible collector who has done best with accounts like it, from the floor’s own call and payment history, inside the rules and workload limits the agency sets, and measures the result against a control group. The agency sets those rules, including any about where accounts may be worked. Any gain is measured against the control group in the same weeks, whichever team the collectors are on.

Sources

• S. 2495, Keep Call Centers in America Act of 2025: introduced in the Senate on 29 July 2025 by Senator Gallego, with Senator Justice as cosponsor; Congressional Research Service summary and bill text on congress.gov. Status checked 23 October 2026.