The 12-question checklist for choosing a corporate wellness vendor in India

Picking a corporate wellness vendor in India is harder than it should be. The category is crowded, claims are inflated, participation rates are hidden, and most vendors push for annual contracts before HR has any data. The result: 60-70% of Indian wellness programs we audit fail in year one.

This is the 12-question checklist we wish HR had when evaluating vendors — the one we'd want a prospect to use even on us. It's designed to filter out shallow vendors quickly and surface the ones who'll actually deliver. Print it, paste it into your RFP template, share it with your team.

The 12-question vendor evaluation checklist

Section 1: Participation & outcomes (questions 1-4)

Q1. What is your last 6 months' average participation rate across clients?

Industry honest: 30-50% is good for traditional wellness, 70-85% is exceptional. If a vendor refuses to answer or gives a vague "depends on the company," that's your signal — they either don't measure it or are hiding bad numbers. We benchmark at 82% across 200+ programs.

Q2. What is your repeat-booking rate?

First-time participation can spike from a kickoff email. Repeat-booking is the cleanest signal that employees actually value the service. Less than 25% repeat rate = the program is a novelty, not a habit.

Q3. What's your no-show / cancellation rate?

Industry norm is 15-20% no-show for traditional vendors. Below 10% is excellent. We run at 7.5% across our programs because the 15-minute format makes commitment cheap.

Q4. Can you share a published case study with real numbers?

"We work with X, Y, Z" is meaningless. Ask for participation, repeat-booking, and NPS data from a named customer. If the vendor can't provide one published case study with verifiable numbers, every other claim is unsupported.

Section 2: Contract & risk (questions 5-7)

Q5. Can you run a free pilot with no contract?

A 3-day pilot at zero HR cost is the right way to test any vendor. Vendors who require a paid contract before sending a single therapist are protecting their margins, not derisking yours. We run free pilots; this is a fair industry minimum.

Q6. What's the smallest contract you'll sign?

Month-to-month or quarterly is healthy. Anything that locks you into a 12-month contract on day one is a red flag — see why programs fail in India for the contract-trap pattern.

Q7. What's your exit clause?

30 days' notice is standard. Some vendors require 60 or 90 days. The longer the exit clause, the less confident the vendor is in their ongoing value.

Section 3: Operations & format (questions 8-10)

Q8. What does the session look like end-to-end?

The format determines participation more than any other factor. Specifically ask:

• How long is each session?
• Does the employee need to change clothes?
• Are oils used?
• Does it require a "wellness room" or special setup?
• How many sessions per therapist per day?

A vendor optimised for the office answers: 15-30 min, no clothing change, no oils, any meeting room, 25+ sessions per therapist day. Anything else is borrowed from a spa.

Q9. Are therapists employees or contractors?

Employee therapists tend to deliver more consistent quality. Marketplace / aggregator vendors send a different therapist every visit, which means no continuity for an employee with a recurring shoulder issue. Ask explicitly.

Q10. What's the booking and rescheduling experience?

Self-serve in-app booking with rescheduling = good. Email-based booking via the HR admin = bad. The booking friction directly shapes participation.

Section 4: Pricing & reporting (questions 11-12)

Q11. What pricing models do you offer?

A serious vendor offers at least two:

• Company-Pay: per-employee/month or per-session
• Employee-Pay: employees pay the vendor directly via UPI; HR cost is ₹0

A vendor that only offers Company-Pay is asking HR to bear all the risk. The Employee-Pay option lets you launch with no budget conversation — read Employee-Pay vs Company-Pay for the trade-offs.

Q12. What reporting do I get monthly?

Minimum: total sessions, unique active employees, NPS, department-level breakdown. Premium: repeat-booking rate, time-of- day patterns, cancellation reasons. If a vendor sends you "a photo and a thank-you email" as the monthly report, you're not buying a wellness program — you're buying a one-time event.

Sample RFP / shortlist template

Use this email or RFP template to ask all 12 questions in one go. Send it to 3-5 vendors; the responses sort themselves quickly.

Red flags that should disqualify a vendor

• "Participation depends on the company" — they don't measure it.
• Refusal to run a free pilot — they need the contract more than they trust their own delivery.
• No published case studies with real numbers — every claim is hearsay.
• "All our therapists are highly rated" — meaningless without specifics on training, certification, employment status.
• Pricing only on a call — opaque pricing means it changes per customer based on what they think you'll pay. Reputable vendors publish pricing bands.
• "Wellness room" requirement — borrowed from spa logistics, doesn't fit Indian offices.
• Annual contract minimum — wants to lock you in before the data is in.

Green flags worth weighting heavily

• Published participation, repeat-booking, NPS data with named customers
• Free pilot offered, no card capture, no minimum commitment
• Month-to-month contract after the pilot
• Self-serve in-app booking for employees
• Two pricing models at minimum (Company-Pay + Employee-Pay)
• Therapist consistency across visits
• Public pricing bands (not opaque "let's get on a call")

How QuicklyRelax answers the 12 questions

For full transparency, here's how we'd answer the same checklist so you can hold us to the same standard you hold other vendors:

• 1. Participation: 82% average
• 2. Repeat-booking: 37.7% (Whatfix data)
• 3. No-show: 7.5%
• 4. Case study: Whatfix, 17.5 months, 651 sessions, full breakdown
• 5. Free pilot: yes, 3 days, no contract
• 6. Smallest contract: month-to-month after pilot
• 7. Exit clause: 30 days
• 8. Format: 15-30 min, no clothing change, no oils, any meeting room
• 9. Therapists: in-house, certified physiotherapists
• 10. Booking: self-serve in-app
• 11. Pricing models: all on the pricing page — Employee-Pay (₹0 to HR), Hybrid, Company-Pay
• 12. Monthly report: sessions, active employees, NPS, department breakdown, repeat-booking rate

The shortest next step

Pick 3 vendors (including us if you'd like). Send each the RFP template above. Run free pilots with the top 2 responses. Decide based on the participation report, not the sales pitch. Start a free pilot with QuicklyRelax to test us against the same checklist.