Most staffing firms evaluate an employer of record (EOR) in the wrong room.
They sit through a pitch, compare pricing and tick the compliance boxes. All useful. None of it tells you whether the partnership will actually work. That gets decided later, on a random Tuesday, when a contractor is upset and someone has to pick up the phone.
Service is one of the five qualities we cover in 5 Qualities to Look for in an EOR for Staffing Firms (US and Canada). It’s also the one that’s hardest to judge from a sales call. Here’s how we’d test it before signing anything.
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Skip the pitch. Call their clients.
Every EOR will tell you their service is excellent. We say it too. So the claim alone shouldn’t move you. What should move you is what their clients say when nobody’s coaching them. Not the curated reference list. Backdoor references: people you find through your own network who use the provider day to day.
A lot of the staffing firms we work with found us exactly this way. They asked people they trusted which EOR actually looks after them, and our name came up. If a provider’s name keeps surfacing unprompted, that tells you something. If it never comes up at all, that tells you something too.
What to ask a backdoor reference
“Are you happy with them?” gets you a polite yes. It doesn’t get you the truth. These questions do a better job:
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When did they last tell you no, and how did they handle it?
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How long does it take them to resolve an issue?
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Would your contractors say they’re treated well?
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When a contractor calls frustrated, who picks up, and what happens next?
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Can you reach someone who can actually make a decision, or does everything go through a ticket queue?
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Has the service changed since you signed?
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If you were choosing again, would you pick them?
Listen for specifics. A reference who can name the person they call and walk you through how a problem got fixed is telling you far more than one who says “it’s all fine.”
The real test is the bad day
Most of those questions point at the same thing: what the EOR does when something goes wrong.
Every staffing firm will have difficult contractors. That’s not a risk. It’s a certainty. So the question isn’t whether it happens, it’s what happens next.
Does the person on the other end of the phone stop and ask whether the policy actually applies here, and how to explain it so the contractor understands? Or does the contractor get dropped into a queue and told to wait?
That one call is the whole relationship in miniature. And it’s not just a contractor experience issue. It’s your issue. Unhappy contractors pull your recruiters off placements and they walk. That’s revenue you didn’t need to lose.
We’ve seen what the other side of this looks like. One UK firm came to us after leaving one of the largest EOR providers in the market, mostly over onboarding friction: lengthy classification questionnaires, blanket insurance requirements where none were legally needed, a four-business-day minimum before anyone could start. When they moved their contractors over to us, not one of them pushed back.
That’s what good service buys you. Quiet.
It’s a people business
Technology matters. A good EOR should make timesheets, payroll and invoicing run without friction (and ours does). But a platform with a support desk bolted on isn’t a service business.
Horst Schulze, who co-founded the Ritz-Carlton, built that company on a simple standard: “Ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.” That’s the bar we’d hold any EOR partner to. It’s the bar we hold ourselves to.
The staffing firms that get the most out of an EOR treat it as a partnership, even though money changes hands. Clear expectations on both sides. Honesty about what each side can deliver. And a shared understanding that the contractors and recruiters in the middle have to stay happy, or none of it works.
Price, you can compare in an afternoon. Compliance, you can audit on paper. Service only shows up when you go looking for it, in the places a sales deck will never point you.
So go looking. Take these questions to their clients. Then take them to ours.
About Agile Partnering
Agile Partnering is an Inc. 5000 back-office, employer of record, and funding partner built specifically for staffing firms in the US and Canada. We take care of the compliance, payroll, and back office so your team can stay focused on clients and placements. If you're weighing your options, get in touch. We'll give you clear, honest answers, including if we're not the right fit.
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