Every offshore staffing vendor will tell you their people are trained, their English is excellent and their office has backup power. Most of it may even be true. The problem is that the sales call is the wrong place to find out, and by the time you know for sure you are three months in with a seat that isn’t working.
These are the questions worth asking before you sign — including the ones vendors would rather you didn’t. We answer all of them ourselves, and we’d be suspicious of anyone who won’t.
1. Who actually employs the person?
This sounds administrative. It decides everything else. If the vendor employs them, the vendor owns payroll, local tax, equipment, leave cover and retention — and has a direct incentive to keep them. If the arrangement is really a contractor marketplace with a vendor logo on top, none of that is true, and you’ll discover it the first time someone doesn’t show up.
Ask it bluntly: “Is this person your employee?” Then ask what happens when they’re sick.
2. Is it a dedicated person or a pool?
A named individual who works only your account learns your customers, your lanes and your quirks. A shared pool means whoever is free picks up your ticket, and nobody knows that the shipper in Laredo always changes the appointment on Thursdays.
Pools are cheaper and sometimes fine for pure volume work. For anything customer-facing, insist on a name.
3. What shift, exactly?
“US hours” can mean a full shift on your clock, or four hours of overlap and a handoff email. Ask for the actual start and end time in your time zone. If you need an overnight desk, ask who is awake at 2am Central and whether that is their normal shift or a favour.
4. How do you test English — and can I hear it?
Self-reported “fluent” means nothing. The useful question is whether the vendor tests speaking on a live call rather than a written test, and whether you get to speak to the actual candidates before you commit. If the answer to the second part is no, that tells you something.
The bar you’re looking for isn’t “no accent”. It’s “a carrier on a bad line in a noisy yard understands them first time”.
5. What do they already know about freight?
There is a real difference between a vendor who recruits generalists and trains them on your process, and one whose people already know what a rate confirmation is, why detention exists, and what “no touch, drop and hook” means. The first is still workable. The second saves you the weeks where your own team is explaining the industry instead of the job.
Ask where the freight knowledge comes from. A vendor whose own people came up in freight will have a concrete answer. One that added “logistics” to a list of verticals will have a vague one.
6. What happens to my logins and data?
Named accounts in your systems, never shared credentials. Company-provided machines, not personal laptops. A written NDA at both the company and individual level. And a specific answer to “what happens on the day someone leaves my account” — the right answer involves a checklist and same-day access removal, not “we’ll let you know”.
If you have a customer-imposed security requirement, send it to the vendor before you sign and get a written yes, a written no, or a written “yes with these changes”. A verbal “that should be fine” is a no.
7. What’s your continuity plan, honestly?
Every offshore location carries some risk — weather, power, politics, connectivity. A good vendor doesn’t wave this away; they describe what specifically happens on a bad day. Offices in more than one location, backup power, redundant internet, staff who can switch to a prepared home setup, and cross-trained cover so a single person offline doesn’t stop your account.
Ask for the plan for your seat, not the brochure version. A vendor that can’t walk you through it hasn’t got one.
8. What does it cost when it doesn’t work?
Ask three things: what the notice period is, whether replacing a person who isn’t working out costs you a new fee, and who pays for retraining the replacement. The answers tell you where the vendor’s incentives sit. If replacement is free and retraining is on them, they are motivated to get it right the first time.
9. Are you paid a percentage of anything?
Some arrangements in freight take a cut of margin or revenue. That creates an incentive to move loads rather than move them well. A flat rate per seat has no such conflict. It’s worth asking outright, because it isn’t always volunteered.
10. Will you tell me when a role shouldn’t be offshored?
This is the one that separates a partner from a vendor. Some seats work brilliantly remote and some genuinely don’t — anything that lives on physical presence or long-standing personal relationships tends to be the second kind. A vendor who will sell you any seat you ask for is optimising for their revenue. One who says “not that one, and here’s why” is optimising for you still being a customer in a year.
The short version
Ask who employs the person, whether they’re dedicated, what shift, how English is tested, where the freight knowledge comes from, how your data is handled, what the continuity plan is, what failure costs, whether there’s a percentage anywhere, and whether they’ll ever tell you no.
Ten questions, one call. The vendors worth working with will be relieved you asked.
