Changing IT support provider is rarely difficult on a technical level. What makes it difficult is discovering, halfway through, that your organisation does not own or control something it assumed it did.
Work through the list below before you give notice. It takes an afternoon and it removes most of the pain.
Who owns the domain name
Your domain is the single most important asset in this list, because email and the website both depend on it. Find out which company it is registered with and whose name is on the registration.
If it is registered in your provider’s name rather than your organisation’s, ask for it to be transferred now, while the relationship is still good. This is normal housekeeping, not an accusation.
Who holds the administrator accounts
For Microsoft 365, or any cloud service you use, there is a global administrator account. Your organisation should hold the credentials for at least one such account, kept somewhere a second person can reach it.
The same applies to the firewall, the wireless controller, the server and any line of business application. A provider holding all of them is convenient until the day you want to change.
Who the licences belong to
Licences bought through a provider’s own agreement may sit inside their tenancy rather than yours. That can mean a rebuy when you move, so it is worth knowing before you plan the cost.
Ask for the licence list, the renewal dates and the name the agreement is under. Compare the count against your actual headcount while you are there, because paying for leavers is common.
Whether the backups can be restored
A backup that runs is not the same as a backup that restores. Ask for the date of the last successful test restore and what was restored.
If nobody can answer, treat that as a task for the first month with the new provider rather than a reason to stay.
What documentation exists
You are looking for a plain record of how things are put together: which server does what, how the network is laid out, which supplier provides the internet line and what the account number is.
If none of it is written down, it lives in the head of the engineer who has been visiting you. That is the knowledge you are really paying to transfer, so ask for it in writing as part of the handover.
What notice you have to give
Read the contract for the notice period, any minimum term and whether there is a charge for handover work. Some agreements renew automatically on a date that has nothing to do with when you signed.
Knowing the date lets you plan the change for a quiet period rather than the week before your busiest month.
How to run the handover
- Agree a date when the new provider takes responsibility, and put it in writing to both.
- Collect the access above before that date, not after.
- Keep the old arrangement running for two weeks past the date if you can. It costs a little and removes the gap.
- Ask the new provider for a written review of what they found in the first month.
- Tell your staff who to contact and from which day. Most handover problems are people ringing the old number.
What the first month with a new provider looks like
Knowing the shape of the first month stops it feeling like a bad decision halfway through. It is nearly always busier than the months that follow, and that is the arrangement working rather than failing.
Week one is discovery. The new provider is building a picture: what devices exist, who has an account, what is backed up, which systems nobody mentioned. Expect questions that feel basic. They are basic because the answers are usually not written down anywhere.
Request volume goes up, not down. Problems your team stopped reporting because nothing happened last time start being reported again. This is the backlog surfacing. It looks like things are getting worse and it is the opposite.
You will hear about things you did not know. Accounts for people who left, administrator rights granted years ago, a backup that has never been restored from, equipment past its support date. None of it reflects badly on anybody. It is what happens when technology grows one decision at a time.
Some work will be quoted separately. A handover is not the same as a repair programme. A good provider separates the two clearly, tells you which items are urgent and which can wait a quarter, and lets you decide the order.
Ask for the written review at the end of the month. What they found, what they fixed, what they recommend and in what order. That document is the main thing you are buying in month one, and it is the one you should still have in a year.
By the second or third month the volume usually settles below where it was before the change, because the causes rather than the symptoms have been dealt with. If it has not settled by then, that is the conversation to have, and a provider worth keeping will welcome it.
A note on leaving well
Most providers hand over properly when asked properly. Give the notice in writing, be clear about the date, and ask for the access list rather than demanding it. The engineer who documented your network has no reason to make the change difficult, and a calm handover protects you if something needs checking later.
If you are weighing up a move, our IT support page sets out how we take support over, including what we ask for and what we write up in the first month. You can also send us the list of what you have and we will tell you what is missing.