1-800 Contacts reviews

3.9

71% would recommend to a friend

(634 total reviews)
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John Graham

84% approve of CEO

73% positive business outlook

1-800 Contacts has an employee rating of 3.9 out of 5 stars, based on 634 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The 1-800 Contacts employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Retail & Wholesale industry (3.5 stars).

Reviews by job title

634 reviews
1.0
Jan 10, 2025

Your employees deserve better.

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Work from home. Ability to trade shifts, or give away time, if other agents are able/willing. The friends you make on your team, as you grow close with each other trauma bonding over working here.

Cons

The CEO just recently told us that instead of raising our pay (1800 does not have competitive pay at all, it’s very mediocre) they would offer us a financial advisor to talk to. A financial advisor cannot help people who are simply only paying for the necessities like bills (rent/mortgage/utilities/internet/etc) and groceries (which we can hardly afford if at all) that live off of a sad salary. The reason they are doing this is because the “anonymous” surveys we take had a trick question that could have been interpreted as EITHER 1 we don’t make enough money or 2 we don’t know how to handle our money. Most people understood the question as the former, but the company is treating it as the latter. They always make the excuse for mediocre pay, or no appropriate bonuses/raises besides the ones we have to destroy our mental health to try and get, that inflation is preventing them from doing so. Inflation is also hurting your employees, the ones who make you MILLIONS every single day. Christmas of 2023 we had a meeting where we were told we made the company hundreds of millions of dollars more than ever before and then in the same breath were told we would not be getting bonuses or raises and only a “thank you” and “happy holidays” while the managers take their mandatory week off when they are not the ones doing the dirty work or deserve the break. This same mindset has continued through to now 2025. There are employees who have been here for 2-3+ years and have never gotten a raise, or only $0.25-$0.50 one time, even though they are working their hardest and deserve more. If they weren’t doing their jobs they would have been fired, as the turnover rate of over 100% here shows due to how quickly and easily you fire people, so they clearly deserve more. Your CEO’s are living luxurious lives while in the same breath saying “I don’t know what you guys do, don’t ever ask me for help and ask someone else” while we are praying we can keep our houses and have something to eat until our next paycheck. Also STOP TAXING OUR BONUSES! Outside of the pay, your employees have no proper support. The workload was raised without warning (but again, pay was not raised with this which is disgusting) yet no other metrics adjusted with this and it has shown and proven time and time again since this change from 2 to 3 max chats that it has hurt your employees and your business more than benefitted it. Expectations and metrics need to be lowered when work load is raised. ART, availability, the minimum RPC, all of that needs to be adjusted to counter the influx in service chats that come with the more chats we take. A lot of this could have been avoided if the job wasn’t watered down as customer service with minimal sales, and instead is actually “make all of the sales or get fired and do customer service without sales but also it will hurt you for doing so” and a different department was made for customer service without sales. It’s absolutely possible to separate the department into sales and service even though you claim it isn’t. On top of this, the availability should not count against you OUTSIDE OF YOUR SHIFT. You have an IT team that can easily make this happen. Stop punishing your employees for their shift ending and them wanting to get off chats, and making it so they don’t have that time to use earlier in the day to get off for breaks/lunches, use the bathroom or simply to just take a breath. On the same topic of support, QA is not handled appropriately. 9 times out of 10 if we receive a low score that is not warranted we can tell you who did it without even seeing their name first and regardless of how many times this is brought up it has not been fixed. We also do not get the appropriate opportunity to dispute these scores, we send them to our managers who will most of the time give their “feedback” and not escalate it, or when they do rarely escalate it to be changed then the reason we get for not being able to adjust it is just completely wrong. People who have never done our jobs or the level of work we currently do, including our managers (who NEVER have taken 3 chats at a time), should not be telling us how we could have and should have done better. This shows a lot in the scores, especially when some agents will get 0’s-2’s for what other agents get 4’s for. The training for new hires has diminished so much. The time is cut shorter, they are thrown onto chats before they even learn a single policy or how any of the systems work, and the other agents that have been here are left to clean up the mess while hurting their stats to do so. We understand new people will make more mistakes than long time workers, but a TON of these mistakes wouldn’t be here if training was done properly. You have regular agents training employees so that the managers and trainers don’t have to do as much work, and AGAIN additional pay is not given for this. We are also pulled to help other departments, which is not what we were hired to do, and you have taken away the ability for the work we do in the other departments to benefit our stats. This work needs to benefit our stats or it needs to not be thrown upon us without a heads up or option to decline. Other departments are sooooo very rarely pulled over to chats when we are absolutely drowning, stop taking us off of chats to go help where it doesn’t financially benefit us. We work to make money and most of us are trained in 3-4+ departments but don’t see the financial gain of that extra knowledge or workload. In the end, as you can clearly see, your employees deserve better. Better pay, better support, better environment.

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1-800 Contacts Response
1y
I want to thank you for your comments on your work experience here at SeekWell. While we understand that not every experience at SeekWell will meet every expectation, we remain committed to improving where it makes the most impact for our associates. We know that compensation, workload expectations, and employee support are critical factors in job satisfaction. While we aim to create an environment where everyone feels valued, we recognize from your feedback that we have areas to improve. We understand the concerns around pay and workload balance. While we have made adjustments over time, we know there’s always more to evaluate. Feedback like this is crucial in helping us shape future decisions, especially when it comes to expectations around chat volume, metrics, and support. Our new partner, My Secure Advantage, is a financial planning option for our associates to plan for the future. From family planning to retirement, this benefit can offer you and your family future success at no cost to you. This benefit is provided by our owner, KKR. Not only does KKR provide vetted financial planning through this new program but combines that benefit with stock options for all SeekWell team members. My hope is all our associates will take advantage of our ever-expanding benefits. We also recognize that employees turn to anonymous platforms because they may not feel comfortable sharing concerns directly. While we encourage open conversations, we also know that trust needs to be built for those conversations to feel productive. We take feedback seriously, whether it’s shared internally or through platforms like this, and we remain committed to improving the employee experience. Thank you again for sharing your perspective and feedback. Best, Customer Department Management
1.0
May 19, 2024

EMPLOYEE BEWARE

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

They have an okay grill on-site where food is heavily discounted (can get a full meal for around $3 typically) and free soft serve. They have smaller on-site gym and fun/arcade room which seems to rarely be used.

Cons

* Management: In this role, specifically in the marketing department, I dealt with some of the most toxic personalities I have ever encountered in my 16 years of professional work. My direct manager was the most unempathetic, unhelpful, and unrealistic person I have ever had the displeasure of working with. Rather than using collaborative language to help teach me in areas I was unfamiliar with, there was constant blame and judgement. The way my manager spoke to me and other direct reports are ways that I wouldn't even choose speak to my worst enemies. I constantly logged off thinking "am I even good at my job?" and "Sunday scaries" so filled with anxiety that I had a hard time breathing just thinking about having to log back on and interact with my manager the next morning (which I didn't realize could actually be possible prior to experiencing it first-hand). I was micromanaged worse than I ever have been, even though I was told in the interview that my manager was a "macro-manager" (the opposite of micromanaging), I was micromanaged down to the very words I would use in presentations, every detail had to be my manager's way of doing things and every single piece of work I submitted took at least 3+ revisions and wasted so much valuable time because everything needed to be their way. I was messaged on Slack in the evenings often with large paragraphs of tasks to complete the next day which usually encompassed most of the day rather than things I actually needed/wanted to work on (no work-life balance respect). Upon connecting with others in the department, it seemed to be a general consensus. When approaching senior leadership about the challenges encountered, they were equally as unresponsive and unhelpful, not seeing a problem in the management style or treatment, despite detailed examples and documentation being shared. * Work-life balance: Work life balance was non-existent and work load was extremely high. I would constantly be working evenings and weekends to try and keep up with the work load and demand. I came from a digital marketing agency background and somehow managing 4-6 clients was easier than managing my role here due to the lack of support and unrealistic expectations -- always being demanded to take on more and more and more, unwilling to take "I don't have the bandwidth for this" as an answer. Despite my efforts, I was consistently told in my 1x1s with my manager that I was falling short and not doing enough. At the same time, I was told I shouldn't be working evenings and weekends, So I wasn't allowed more time to put in more effort and hours (despite being willing), yet simultaneously told my work wasn't good enough -- a typical case of corporate gaslighting. * Benefits/Comp Insurance is not great, on the higher end and found myself paying higher I have at other roles. Comp is fair at the time, bonus earned for management level employees. * Culture/Values: Everyone is super siloed in the marketing department. You rarely get the opportunity to interact with even other marketing teams, even though it would be beneficial for you and performance. As a remote employee, I was told I needed to come into the office once a quarter (dates/times were not something I was asked about, or asked if I could or wanted to go -- was forced). They have an okay grill on-site where food is heavily discounted (can get a full meal for around $3 typically) and free soft serve. They have smaller on-site gym and fun/arcade room which seems to rarely be used. * Overall: They say that in life it's more important to know what you don't want, than what you do want. And trust me when I say you DO NOT want to work here. A wise man learns from his mistakes, a wiser man learns from the mistakes of others. I hope you'll learn from mine and avoid what seems like a great opportunity with a well-known brand, to what is actually a self-esteem destroyer and anxiety-inducing role where you will become an insignificant cog who's feelings or contributions don't matter.

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1-800 Contacts Response
2y
Thank you for reaching out with your experience. We take all feedback (Glassdoor reviews, employee engagement surveys, etc.) seriously and have passed on your comments to our marketing business partners and leadership teams. We are constantly working on hearing feedback, and creating an environment that nurtures work/life balance and support. We appreciate your time with our company and wish you only the best with your next opportunity.
3.0
May 16, 2019

Not a Great Workplace for Women

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

They have great company events and essentially free food all day. The onsite gym and the people that work there are exceptional!

Cons

There is little room for growth, especially for women! There are no women in Executive leadership and maybe 5% in leadership in the company overall. The "boys club" mentality is strong and really no way around it unless 50% of the men currently in leadership roles now, leave the company. This is not a new complaint, either. HR has known about these complaints for years, and not doing anything worth while about it. The women in leadership have either left or just gotten used to the fact they live in a boys club, and have to play the game.

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1-800 Contacts Response
7y
As a woman in leadership at 1-800 Contacts, who started in our Call Center, I first want to say I hear your concerns. It is important that all of our associates, both women and men, feel they have the opportunity to come to Contacts and thrive. The existence of a “boys-club” is not an unfamiliar rumor or term, and early in my career I even found myself sharing this perception at times. But what I have also found over the years and currently is that 1-800 Contacts is a company where men and women alike can have rewarding careers. From manager to VP level, we currently have 27% female leadership. We’re not where we’d like to be yet, but I’m confident we’re moving in the right direction. Recently there have been many great changes to help drive and encourage more diverse leadership. Aspiring female leaders have access to a bi-weekly Women in Leadership lunch, internal mentorships and sponsors, and trainings. I personally have tremendous confidence in our CEO and leadership team, and know that we have the right people in place to make a difference. We continue to evolve for the better, striving to be more inclusive across the board in all that we do, from promotions to discussions to development opportunities.
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Glassdoor has 644 1-800 Contacts reviews submitted anonymously by 1-800 Contacts employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if 1-800 Contacts is right for you.