Changing vendor
How to switch commercial cleaning companies without a gap in service
Most facility managers put off changing a cleaning vendor because the changeover looks worse than the problem. Done in order, it takes a fortnight and nobody in the building notices anything except that it is cleaner.
Read the notice period before anything else
Find the termination clause in your current agreement and the date it runs to. Thirty days is common, sixty is not unusual, and some contracts renew automatically unless notice lands in a specific window. This one paragraph sets the whole timeline.
Do not give notice until the replacement is signed and the start date is fixed. The gap is what hurts, not the switch.
Get a written scope from the new vendor first
Before you sign anything, you should be holding a scope of work for your building: every area, every task, every frequency. If a vendor will not put that in writing before a contract, they will not put it in writing after one.
Compare it against what you are getting now rather than against the price you are paying now. Most buildings discover their current scope was never written down at all.
Keys, codes, alarms and badges
List every way the outgoing crew can enter: keys, fobs, alarm codes, badge access, gate codes, dock access. Plan the handover so codes change on the last night of the old contract, not a week later.
The new vendor should be documenting who holds what from their first shift, and you should be able to ask who was in the building on any given night and get a straight answer.
Plan the first week as an overlap, not a cliff
The strongest changeover is a deep clean or reset visit before the new nightly scope starts, so the building starts from a known condition and the new crew is not inheriting six months of missed detail as their baseline.
Inspections should start in the first week, not the second month. That is when problems are cheapest to correct and when habits are set.
Tell the building, briefly
One short notice to tenants or staff with the changeover date and who to tell if something is missed. It stops a fortnight of complaints going to the wrong place, and it gives you a clean read on whether the new scope is working.
What to watch in the first month
Restrooms late in the afternoon rather than first thing. Entrance glass on a Monday. Breakrooms after a busy week. Whether anyone from the vendor has walked the building without being asked to, and whether you got the score.
Next
Get the scope before you give notice
A walkthrough takes under an hour and ends with a written scope of work for your building. Use it to compare vendors, including the one you already have.
Questions
Questions this raises
How long does it take to change commercial cleaning companies?
The notice period decides it, which is usually thirty to sixty days. The work on your side is a walkthrough, a written scope and an access handover, which fits comfortably inside that window.
Will there be a gap in cleaning during the changeover?
There should not be. Sign the new contract with a start date that begins the night after the old one ends, and change codes and keys on that boundary rather than afterwards.
Should the new vendor deep clean before starting?
In most buildings yes, especially if the current service has slipped. It sets a known starting condition so that the nightly scope is holding a standard rather than trying to recover one.