You’ve won over the senior team and secured budget to invest in supporting employee wellbeing.
Now you must spend both your budget – and time – wisely. That’s because choosing the right vendor represents a significant commitment. It’s not a decision to be taken lightly.
But how do you actually choose the right provider?
In my career, I’ve learnt a lot working alongside dozens of employee wellbeing vendors and across many procurement processes.
I want to share that knowledge to help you identify the best wellbeing provider for your needs. That’s why I’m sharing my 10 key questions to ask your next vendor.
You may already have a supplier, or have a renewal coming up, if so, test yourself – perhaps you can already answer these questions.
Q. What is the full user experience?
For each employee persona, you must explore the full user experience, identify gaps, and ask clarifying questions.
To communicate effectively and generate engagement, you must first understand the entire experience.
Q. Can I pilot the offering first?
Testing the service on a subset of employees before committing to a long-term contract allows you to try-before-you-buy.
It will also help you to understand if the provider is willing to meet you where you are. Plus, it allows you to open up conversations about licence numbers.
Q. How does your team work with ours after the contract sign on and what can you commit to?
Document the response and ensure it’s reflected in the contract. This is so important. When you sign up with a provider, you sign up with a partner. You want to ensure they are just as invested in you as you are in them.
Find out how often you’ll meet, who your key points of contact are, and who you should contact for escalation.
Q. What Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are in place and what happens if they are not met?
This question lets you test out what the level of service really is. Is it different to what was pitched to you?
The SLAs are your way of ensuring a level of service you expect. As a buyer, you are promising something to your staff and you have a right to require a level of service.
Q. Can I speak to other clients of yours about your product?
Ideally, you’re looking for client contacts in similar industries or those with similar employee demographics.
In my experience, clients of providers will openly talk and share both benefits and pain points. Both are so helpful and will give you a real view into what it is like to work with a given partner. It also allows you to corroborate anything that they say to see if it really holds up.
Q. What level of reporting and data do we get?
You ultimately want to ensure that the data you get tells you something meaningful and relevant for your business.
You also want to test if the provider is willing to understand what you need and provide for that. Ask if your data can be viewed on by country, region, or office location.
Questions to ask internally
It’s also important to question your own requirements and think critically within your internal team. With that in mind, try these questions before you begin – and during – your vendor search.
Q. What are our people asking for? What does the data show that they need?
You must really understand what your need is and the problem you are ultimately solving.
There are many, many, many providers in this industry and it is all too easy to get caught up in just getting something. Instead, you must really understand where your gaps are and what you need to ultimately solve for. We’ll touch on this last point in more detail in the next question.
Q. What are the gaps with our existing service providers?
Ask yourself where exactly the pain points are located. Are there things that you need that your current vendor is not providing?
You can use this knowledge to quiz other providers and discover if you will experience the same challenges with a new vendor.
The focus should be on understanding the challenges so you can solve them rather than putting a plaster over the issue.
Q. Is there a vendor that provides what we have plus what we need?
This question is all about streamlining your search. It’s a great question to consider because it allows you to think strategically about the types of providers you could be looking for and whether there is potential to save money by finding one provider that meets all your needs.
Q. Who do we need to involve to make the decision?
It is crucial that you bring the right people along in your search, so think about the representation in the room when you are interviewing potential providers.
Do you have each region represented? Each business area? The voice of the people? These are all important considerations to make.
Finding the right match
Finding the right wellbeing provider is an important decision. Contracts can be several years and you cannot afford to lose the goodwill and motivation of your senior team.
Put simply, you need to ensure you have found the right match. So, make sure you rigorously quiz your potential vendors (and internal team) on the questions listed in this article.
