Skip to contentSkip to footer
      employer cover photo
      employer logo
      employer logo

      Exclusive Concepts

      Is this your company?

      Exclusive Concepts Reviews

      3.4

      61% would recommend to a friend

      (57 total reviews)

      Scott Smigler

      65% approve of CEO

      59% positive business outlook

      Ratings by category

      3.7

      Culture and values

      3.4

      Career opportunities

      3.3

      Work/Life balance

      3.3

      Compensation and benefits

      3.2

      Diversity and inclusion

      3.1

      Senior management

      Exclusive Concepts has an employee rating of 3.4 out of 5 stars, based on 57 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Exclusive Concepts employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Media and communication industry (3.7 stars).

      Reviews by job title

      57 reviews
      1.0
      5 Oct 2022

      Get in and Get out

      Seo specialist
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      Really nice people to work with. Atmosphere among internal staff (within your department - not between departments) is friendly

      Cons

      Believe all the reviews saying that there is intense favoritism in this place, because it is real. The harder you work, the more they take advantage of you, and if you're not one of the favorites, you will be overworked to the point of committing late nights and none of the managers will care in the slightest. They act like they're open to feedback, but they take absolutely no action on this feedback and their honest response to any feedback along the lines of "this is an unfeasible workload" is "so is everybody's". They'll consistently say that they'll move accounts off of you and then will never do it. The leader of the SEO team along with her direct subordinates (3 in particular) on the SEO team are protected from unmanageable workloads, and action is actually taken when any of those subordinates complain about how many clients they have to deal with as they are allowed to have their clients transferred off. Anyone below those direct subordinates are completely screwed unless they're one of the favorites. Essentially all the junior SEO specialists are hired to relieve those direct subordinates (but the junior SEO specialists are unaware that that is their role), and if you are in one of the non-senior positions, you may think that you can work as hard as possible in hopes of receiving similar treatment when you're more experienced, but you'd be wrong because if you are not one of the favorites you will be treated like dirt no matter what, even after proving yourself for 1+ years. There is one particular direct subordinate of the SEO leader who had several juniors/seniors working under him (around 8) who plays favoritism like crazy. His favorite reports were allowed to use the new hires for help on their clients and were even allowed to transfer clients off onto the new hires while everyone else was consistently overloaded. He will use anyone who is not his favorite as a mule just so that his favorites' and his own workloads are relieved. People have been quitting the SEO team very rapidly for about years now and yet no one is doing anything to break this pattern despite HR and the SEO leader being aware of what's going on. Account managers are treated like Gods even though they do practically nothing for the calls, and the leader of the SEO team is too scared to say anything against them. Seriously, the number of calls that specialists have led due to the account managers being on vacation is endless, and they were able to lead these calls because the account managers' absences on these calls made absolutely no difference to the clients as that is how little they do for their clients. There were also so many account managers that would not even bother communicating through any issues with the clients despite that being their one job. That role fell to the specialists (despite this not being the specialists' jobs) because the account managers knew literally nothing. Fortunately many of the laziest account managers quit but there are still a handful of lazy ones working there. There was one particular account manager who was allowed to transfer practically all of her clients off in a heartbeat just because she was her boss's favorite and many specialists on the calls were left screwed because of it. She's also arrogant enough to act as though she's the specialists' boss and nag the specialists to send her stuff by a timing of her liking (her favorite is 4PM) that the client would have absolutely no problem waiting for. If the SEO team leaders allowed this sort of transfer ability to the SEO specialists, maybe SEO specialists would stop quitting the company so much. Don't even get me started on the clients. Some of the clients are the most disrespectful and arrogant people you will ever meet, yet we are still expected to cater to them hand and foot despite the way they talk to us. When I say that they treat the specialists like dirt I mean that in every form of the word. The clients start to think that they own us and it's because this company gives them that impression. There's a ridiculous sundown rule that demands everyone reply to all emails by the end of the work day and because of that many clients end up emailing specialists multiple times a day for no reason just as an excuse to take advantage of us (tons of the emails have nothing to do with the services we offer). No one in sales ever clarifies to the clients that they are supposed to have a decent humane respect towards us, and the specialists therefore never experience it. This is a problem because unlike other customer service jobs, this job requires us to sell our souls to these clients (I'm exaggerating only a little here). We will work late hours trying to keep them happy and replying to their millions of emails, and after all that they show up on the call to start cursing at us without even an ounce of gratitude for the fact that we devoted far more hours to them than they were paying for or for any of the problems we were successfully able to solve for them despite their low budgets. Deciding to not reply to the latest email at 5:10PM after already responding to the same client's other 5 emails earlier in the day is not an option because either the account manager or the leader of the SEO team will start teams'ing you to reply even though both of those parties could easily step in and actually do us a favor and reply themselves (Aka actually act like a team player). And the reason this behavior exists is because the company cares more about the clients than the specialists, and while that is understandable given that the clients are paying something, this company will 100% fail without the specialists, and it is the specialists who are getting the shortest ends of the sticks here. The failure is already apparant from the fact that so many clients quit when the specialists get swapped but stay when the account managers get swapped. This problem with disrespectful client behavior can easily be solved if management simply moves the clients that specialists are having difficulty with to specialists that the clients like (since these clients are very biased, racist, sexist, etc., and often change their whole attitude just by receiving a specialist who fits their bias), and subsequently cancel clients that are displaying poor behavior with three or more specialists, but that will never happen because the SEO team refuses to address the needs of any specialist who is not a favorite. If you have no experience and are looking for a job then feel free to use this place as a stepping stone because you will learn a lot but after that get tf out. You should especially make sure to leave if you end up being hired for the SEO team because the SEO team leaders will never ever allow you to explore your career or have a manageable workload. It's sad that the SEO team is consistently understaffed, but that shouldn't be an excuse for the leaders to treat the junior SEO specialists like prisoners and slaves.

      3.0
      20 June 2020

      Great place to learn but growth can challenging

      Senior specialist
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      - You're surrounded by people who are fantastic at their job and highly motivated, which makes it easy to rise to the top if you put in the work. - Strong culture - Beautiful office space - Due to the large variety of accounts, you'll be exposed to a lot in a short period of time, giving you a skill set in many verticles - CEO is a cool guy and approachable - Generous salary bumps - HR is approachable - You'll make invaluable lifetime connections within the first few weeks. The ECI network keeps giving even after you're gone

      Cons

      - Benefits are weak - I've seen a few comments about management being poor, but I don't know that I agree with this. The bigger problem (elephant in the room) is that one person is controlling most of the decisions and this makes the Directors seem like they don't want any change, but they're just dealing with internal bottlenecks - As I said, the CEO is great and very intelligent but sometimes it feels like he doesn't have full control of the company because someone working directly under him is calling all of the shots and making things toxic. Sometimes your Manager will literally say "I hear you, but my hands are tied". - If you look at the places where ECI employees go to after leaving, you'll be impressed. So why isn't ECI more well-known within the industry? There is a huge lack of internal marketing efforts - Once they trust you, your work/life balance will only get worse, which makes it tough to grow without being burnt out. When employees leave it's usually with a bad taste in their mouth because they're so exhausted. This comes with the business model that ECI uses (smaller brands = 1 specialist on 20+ accounts). So when those bigger brands do come in, the cookie-cutter approach doesn't work for the clients that need extra attention, and the specialist ends up being the one that pays for it - Start-up company vibes despite the company being around for 10+ years. Lack of internal resources is a huge issue, but the HR department appears to be improving this

      1.0
      3 Jan 2023

      Sad to see how far we’ve fallen.

      Specialist
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      Keep your rose-colored glasses on for as long as possible. “Seek The Positive” (i.e. “Toxic Positivity”) is a phrase that’s thrown around a lot. If you’re able to distance yourself from frustration, log off at an appropriate hour, and actually allow yourself vacation time without stressing about client coverage – you’ll make it here. We’ll hire anyone living & breathing, from anywhere within the U.S. Fully-remote work with no obligation to be in-office, in fact, you’ll likely never step foot into the office at all! (Only higher-management gets flown in on Exclusive’s dime) Those local to Boston, can enjoy the excessive amount of food frequently catered in-office for upper-management. If you’re looking for a remote job for easy coin, this is it. Micro-managing (let alone basic onboarding) does not exist so you can get by doing less than the bare minimum and it will take you no less than 6 months to be let go.

      Cons

      On the contrary, if you’re a hard worker, you’ll be rewarded with more work, sometimes even the job of three people. If it bothers you that people do not do their jobs, this isn’t the role for you. Exclusive is in a dire straits that has led to losing over 50% of their paid/IMS teams over the last 12 months, many with bad blood. During this time our Glassdoor rating has dropped from a 4.1 to a 3.5. We’re struggling to attract reputable candidates, so management has turned to fluffing our reviews with fake entries to offset recent experiences from active employees. Our rate of hiring cannot keep up with the rate in which we are losing employees. For every team member that leaves, anywhere up to 30 accounts are redistributed to the remaining specialists, for no extra compensation. What should be a 60 to 90 day onboarding period has been brought down as short as 10 days, so be prepared to be offloaded another specialist's problem-accounts on your second week of work. I encourage all current and incoming employees to be transparent with each other regarding salary. There are no defined ranges of pay for seniors vs. juniors vs. coordinators and associates. A 2-year tenured senior could be making the same as an incoming coordinator, just due to the fact that we need a enticing salary to back-fill our turnover. It’s even gotten to the point where we’ve had to hire outside consultants to take over accounts of departing specialists, paid at an hourly wage far more than an average Exclusive salary. Upper management has not turned over in anywhere from 7 to 15 years. The average tenure of a current Exclusive specialist has dropped to less than a year. Although we’ve had recent specialists leave as early as 9 months, 6 months and even 3 months. I feel for those still present, now juggling more accounts than ever. The process of client-selection has not improved. As of recent, some clients have been transitioned to up to three different specialists over the course of 3 months. Clients notice this, and bounce. We’ve lost the vast majority of our top accounts, leaving Sales increasingly more desperate to sign anyone who bites. Thus, many of these new clients are poor fits, with unrealistic demands that falls on the specialists and account managers to navigate. Despite cases of verbal abuse, contract breaches and explicit racism/misogyny, upper management will never agree to let go of a client. Exclusive no longer has the infrastructure to give the appropriate attention to the number of clients we continue to bring on. When enrolling in Exclusive’s one of two healthcare options, be prepared to have your paycheck cut by 20% to 30%, for either a $1,000 or $2,000 annual deductible for a single person. A 401k option is available with a tempting matching offer, though you will not receive this matched amount until you reach 5 years of employment. Since we are a Massachusetts-based company, you will receive paycheck deductions for Massachusetts Paid Family/Medical Leave, which you are not eligible to use if you live out-of-state. You will be allotted 10 days of accrued Paid Time Off. “Summer” Fridays take off only 3 hours of the afternoon for only a 2-month stretch of time. This does not apply if you have client calls during these times. Attention from management is disappointing. Many that have climbed through the ranks did not do so from exemplary performance, but instead from the fact that they just haven’t quit yet. We are so short on specialists and since 80% of our current team are recent-hires, clients have had to be offloaded to managers. This leaves as many as a dozen reports per manager, alongside a growing portfolio of needy clients. The most disappointing however – management is now instructed to no longer give junior specialists opportunities to grow their experience outside of their client load. Newly-hired specialists will be bound to the limits of their job description – bid opts, campaign builds, answering emails, writing reports. This makes it difficult for specialists to learn new skills and thus be qualified for an outside position, making it harder to leave. Moreover, although we are “managing” our service for each client, we are not given a “manager” title until at a minimum, 3 years. Incoming coordinators will not be given a manager title until at a minimum, 5 years. In the majority of identical agency and in-house positions are labeled as “manager” and are looking for candidates with that same “manager” title, again making it harder to leave.

      Viewing 1 - 3 of 57 Reviews
      Related searches: Exclusive Concepts jobs | Exclusive Concepts salaries | Exclusive Concepts benefits | Exclusive Concepts interviews
      ReviewsExclusive Concepts reviews

      Glassdoor has 64 Exclusive Concepts reviews submitted anonymously by Exclusive Concepts employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Exclusive Concepts is right for you.