How does a collection agency win a split placement and grow its share?

Why do creditors split a book?

To compare agencies on like accounts, and to keep a second agency ready. IC System, a collection agency that takes part in these models, describes the set-up in a 2023 article: the incumbent is tested against challengers, each gets a share, each is scored, and the shares move with results.

Public tenders do it openly. Westchester Medical Center’s 2025 bad debt RFP planned to choose two agencies and split each facility’s accounts by patient surname, half the alphabet each. The University of Arizona’s 2026 RFP says placements with each awarded agency will depend on performance. So winning the tender is often only winning a seat. The share is won afterwards.

What should you agree at the start?

The terms of the comparison, before the first batch. In our view, four things:

1. The measure. Dollars collected against dollars placed is the usual one. Agree whether it is gross or net of fees, and how compliance and complaints sit beside it.
2. The window. The number of months from placement over which each batch is read. Comparing a three-month-old batch with a nine-month-old one is not a comparison.
3. How accounts are split. At random or by a neutral rule such as the alphabet, with the same kinds of account to each agency.
4. When share is reviewed. IC System recommends quarterly. Knowing the date lets you plan what you report.

How do you make sure the comparison is fair?

Watch what you are given. An agency handed fresh primary placements will beat one handed accounts that two agencies have already worked, whatever their skill. Experian, which sells collections analytics, makes the point in a 2012 post: it compares each monthly batch placed with competing agencies, over the life of the batch.

If your batches differ from the other agency’s in age, balance or stage, say so early and ask for a fairer split. Most new placements go to agencies a creditor already knows (how larger creditors find an agency), so a fair seat on a split book is worth protecting. Raising it after a poor quarter reads as an excuse. Raising it at the start reads as a partner who wants a fair test. How debt buyers allocate accounts sets out what a fair comparison needs.

Where do agencies on the same book differ?

Two agencies working like accounts usually reach consumers at similar rates, because the accounts and the contact rules are the same. In our view the gap more often sits in what each right-party contact turns into: how much a reached consumer pays, and how often a promise is kept.

That part is decided on your floor. Collectors convert at different rates on different kinds of account, so which collector takes which consumer changes the result with the same team (why collectors convert differently). Reporting right-party contacts per account and dollars per contact separately shows the client where your lead comes from. RPC conversion explains the measure.

In a live test at a North American collection agency, a telecom book of 170,000 accounts was split 50/50 at random before the first call. The half matched by BestPair collected $98.76 per account reached against $79.17 on the usual process, 24.7% more, with the same collectors and the same kind of accounts. One book in one month, not a forecast for any other floor (the case study). Inside a split placement, a difference of that kind is what decides which agency is the champion.

How do you grow your share once you are ahead?

• Report in the client’s terms. Their measure, their batch dates, their window, every month. Do not make them work out the comparison.
• Show the split. Reach and conversion, so the client can see the lead is not luck in one batch.
• Ask for a step, not everything. A larger share for one review period, on the same measure, is easier to agree than a full transfer.
• Keep the gate clean. A complaint or audit failure can cost share on its own, whatever the dollars say.

Sources

• Champion-Challenger Collections Model: IC System, a collection agency, 2023.
• Westchester Medical Center, Primary Bad Debt Collection Services RFP (2025): two agencies, split by surname.
• University of Arizona, Arizona State University and Northern Arizona University, Debt Collection RFP (2026): placements decided on performance.
• Best practices for improving agency performance: Experian, 2012.