How to switch office cleaning companies without a gap.
Most office managers put up with a bad cleaning company for a year longer than they should, because switching sounds like a project. It is a week.
The signs are familiar. The crew is different every week. The conference room gets skipped when it matters. Someone has stopped answering the phone. You have been meaning to switch cleaning companies for months, and you have not, because you imagine a dirty week in between and a stack of paperwork.
Here is the whole process. It takes about a week, and the office should not notice it happened.
Step 1: Read your agreement
Find out how much notice you owe. Thirty days is common; month-to-month is less. If you are locked into a longer term, look for the performance clause. Most contracts have one, most companies have never enforced one, and a short, specific email listing missed visits and unresolved complaints usually gets you out.
Do not give notice yet. First line up the replacement.
Step 2: Book walk-throughs
Have two or three companies walk your office. Fifteen minutes each. Watch what they ask about. A good company asks about your people, your kitchen, your restrooms, and your building's freight rules. A bad one measures the floor and quotes from a formula. Ask each one the question at the heart of W-2 crews versus 1099 contractors: are your cleaners employees or contractors?
Ask for a quote in crew hours, not just a monthly number, so you can compare what you are actually buying.
Step 3: Paperwork, during the notice period
Once you pick, the new company needs three things from you and you need two from them. From you: keys or fobs, alarm codes, and the building's vendor requirements (COI wording, badging, freight windows). From them: a Certificate of Insurance naming your building, and a written scope of what is included each visit.
All of this happens while your old company works out its notice. There is no reason for the two to overlap or for either to know about the other.
Step 4: Get your keys back
On the last day, collect every key, fob, and card the old company holds, and change the alarm code that night. If the old company cannot tell you how many keys it has, that is your answer about why you switched. Your building can rekey a suite in a day if the count does not add up.
Step 5: The first night
A good first night is a slightly longer one. The new crew learns the office, works the checklist you agreed on, and the crew lead walks it at the end. Expect a message the next morning asking what you noticed. Answer it honestly. The second week is when the routine sets in, and it sets in around your feedback.
What switching to Breezy looks like
We take over mid-month more often than not. Give us the date the current service ends, and we start the next night. The walk-through happens during your notice period, the COI goes to your building before we arrive, and the same crew you meet in week one is the crew on your floor in month twelve, because they are employees. We have been doing it this way in New York since 2012, and the first night still gets the crew lead's full attention.
