How to choose a facility services vendor

Why do facility services contracts degrade after the first few months?

Contracts degrade because the labour hours quietly drop after the honeymoon, and almost no contract has a mechanism that makes the drop visible.

The pattern is consistent. Months one and two are staffed properly because the vendor is proving themselves. By month five a shift is short a person, then two, and the scope is being covered in fewer hours than it was priced for. Nothing announces this. It shows up as complaints that each seem individually minor.

The defence is not a stricter contract, it is a visible one: named supervision, documented inspection on a stated interval, and a labour hour commitment you are permitted to check.

What questions actually separate vendors?

The questions worth asking are the ones a weak vendor cannot answer specifically, and specificity is the whole test.

• How many labour hours will be in my building each week?

  A real vendor answers with a number. A weak one answers with a description of their commitment to quality.

• Who is my supervisor and how often do they inspect?

  You want a name, a frequency and a written output. A supervisor who inspects when there are complaints is a complaint handler.

• Are the people in my building your employees or subcontracted?

  Neither answer is disqualifying. An evasive answer is.

• What is your annual turnover on comparable accounts?

  Turnover is the leading indicator for service degradation. A vendor who tracks it will tell you; one who does not has just told you something else.

• What happens at 2am?

  Ask for the actual escalation path and the name of who answers, then call the number during the sales process.

• Show me three comparable buildings I can call.

  Comparable building type, not comparable square footage. An office portfolio reference does not tell you about a distribution center.

• What is not in this scope?

  A vendor who answers this clearly is a vendor who will not be writing change orders in month three.

What answers should end the conversation?

Refusing to disclose labour hours, refusing to name supervision, or being unable to produce a current certificate of insurance are each sufficient reason to stop.

• No labour hour disclosure

  The only reason to withhold it is that it will not survive arithmetic against your square footage.

• Insurance 'available on request'

  A current certificate should arrive the same day it is asked for. It is a file, not a project.

• No named supervisor

  Supervision by department means supervision by nobody.

• References they will not let you call

  There is only one reason for this.

• A quote before a site walk

  It is a template, and templates get revised upward after award.

• Pricing well below the field

  Ask what has been excluded. There is always an answer, and you would rather have it now.

Does using one vendor across several trades create risk?

It concentrates risk, and whether that is a problem depends entirely on whether the vendor can actually perform every trade they are holding.

The honest downside of consolidation: if the relationship fails, more of your building fails at once, and transitioning five scopes is harder than transitioning one.

The way to test it before signing is to ask which trades are self-performed and which are subcontracted, and to require that answer in writing. A consolidated vendor who brokers four of five trades has given you a general contractor with a markup, not a facilities partner. That can still be the right choice, but it should be a choice you made knowingly.

What should the first ninety days look like?

The first ninety days should produce a written transition plan, a documented baseline inspection, and a scheduled review at day thirty and day ninety with the numbers in front of both parties.

Get the baseline documented before the new vendor starts. Photograph the building's condition on day zero. It is the only way to have a real conversation later about whether things improved.

Put the day-thirty review in the contract. The problems that eventually kill a facility services relationship are almost all visible in the first month and almost never raised there.