Revel Systems reviews

Great

Pluspunten:

It's easy to learn and accessible. Having it on an Ipad means that it's large enough to know what button is being pressed, and to move things around if need be. Having categories set up is great so we can keep track of how much change we need or how many people came in to visit the museum, that day.

Minpunten:

It can get a little complicated especially with adding discounts to certain purchases which can be difficult for our older volunteers to get a hold of. But is really it, on the basic side of things, it works well and does the job efficiently.

Revel Was a Great Decision

Opmerkingen: The customer service is what really sold Revel to us. We had engaging team members throughout the entire process that helped us implement and understand our new POS and inventory management system. So far, we are very happy with Revel and the support we receive from them.

Pluspunten:

We love the ease of use for both our patients and staff. Revel is designed to be very user friendly and efficient.

Minpunten:

The reboot time it takes when you reset the system.

One of my worst business decisions....

Opmerkingen: 1. Difficult to set up. I'm nearly set up now and it took me an average of 10 hours a day for 6 or 7 days.
2. Misrepresented themselves as being able to scale down for a small quick service bar with bar tabs.
3. Hold times for support are any where from 20 sec's-1 hour!! Unreliable.
4. Support staff are very nice and try hard to help, but there is some language barrier with every support staff member 24 hours a day.
After many phone calls, emails and frustrating nights I finally received confirmation today that they will release me from contract and charge me 45% restocking fee on equipment. IM somewhat satisfied by that. If you have a QSR or a FSR maybe they work....And maybe usually they answer support calls faster. I don't know. I'm just glad I'm out with a minimally painful 1k mistake.

Pluspunten:

Very adaptive if you are FSR. Many ways to get to open tabs. Support team emails articles and/or videos to help after virtually every support call . Support staff are very friendly and patient.

Minpunten:

SOUNDED good, but they couldn't deliver! Make sure they demonstrate the feature you want to use before purchasing. I spoke to my sales rep for 30-45 minutes and multiple times and still the system did not work as expected! I could not remove the majority of dining options (we are a bar with NO food or table service) I need lots of tabs and good inventory tracking of my liquor, kinda like a night club. The system works for FULL service, QUICK service or retail I guess... Definitely not a bar with no table service. It is VERY difficult to set up!! At first I thought lots of settings = lots of customization. In my case I found it not customizable to my needs. I was calling support 15 times a day for advise and work arounds. In 1 week I waited on hold with support 4 times for 20-25 minutes each call. One time I actually waited for 1 whole HOUR! Thank fully I still had not gone live. I don't like the menu lay out. Personally I think the categories and subcategories take up a LOT of valuable screen space (BIG squares). I thought I could bypass the subcategories, but after purchase found out that I couldn't get necessary reports that way. Modifiers can only add ingredients. I needed cocktails that use less of one ingredient and more of another. Later found out that was not possible. Also 3 year contract?! Wow that's a big commitment!

System Admin for Beauty Company with 4+ years of Revel experience

Opmerkingen: My role with Estee Lauder is Retail Business analyst for Le Labo brand. Because they use Revel which is unique to any other Estee Lauder brand, my responsibility is also system admin of the Revel software. From my usage perspective, I enjoy that it is self contained and there's not much we cant make it do to support our business needs. Over half of the problems we face actually are not with Revel at all, but the way have we extract data from Revel's server to publish to our master system (SAP) and supporting that integration. This was architected and is maintained by our organization.

Pluspunten:

Revel is very valuable to Le Labo brand because as beauty brand that creates hand blended perfume, we need to track all of the inventory at an ingredient level. From a Retail POS and inventory management perspective, Revel is a shining star. Deployment is easy, just download the app, provision, and as long as you have an internet connection, you're on your way.

Minpunten:

CRM and eCommerce integration have been challenges for us, but not at the fault of Revel really. Being the large enterprise we are, the other areas of our business are cemented in the platforms that they use already, and thus there is no out of the box integration available for features beyond the core POS/Inventory that we rely on. The path forward would be for our organization to create new custom integrations to match our own internal business requirements. As far as a Revel review, the features that we do use and the support that we receive has been top notch.

Revel POS system

Opmerkingen: Same system used for different areas of our business where we had different POS systems in past. Easier for administration, bookeeping, etc.

Pluspunten:

Offers both retail and restaurant versions of software that works for our company, which includes a retail operation (winery & brewery) as well as a separate cafe operation.

Minpunten:

"CRM" customer management is lacking on the management side; purchase reporting only available for periods of 12 months rather than entire history for customer. Reports auto load prior to dates being entered; spend a lot of time waiting for a report to load to then enter actual period wanted for report.Features removed during updates (no longer have receipt option when comping items; for winery/brewery operations we comp out bottles used for tastings on a daily basis and used these receipts routinely, only to have the feature disappear with an update).Quite expensive for our seasonal business; we need several stations during busy months but have to pay quite a bit even when several are not used during slow months.

****AVOID**** EXTREMELY POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE AND SCALES NOT ADAPTED TO RETAIL BUSINESSES

Pluspunten:

The overall experience has been extremely poor so there is actually nothing I would say that is positive about Revel

Minpunten:

Revel customer service is extremely slow, as explained by someone else, you get to exchange emails with about 10 different people and no one knows what they are talking about. The average answer time from them is 5 days. I have a deli in London, and I have been sold Revel as a great POS that would easily work with Quickbooks, which I am using. They provided me with their integrated scale, which was unable to weigh goods that were below 100g. Also, ti was rounding up so a cheese that would weigh 123g would come up as 125g, which is illegal. I notified them and asked for a full refund (including the £2300 set up fee) , which they refused, whereas it is their fault if their scales are not fit for a business like mine. DO NOT WORK WITH THIS BUNCH OF AMATEURS AND THIEVES

Revel System as Inventory Management

Opmerkingen: Overall experience is good as we are familiar with the system. Revel support is generally helpful when issues require additional assistance/experience to navigate.

Pluspunten:

POS interface is intuitive and easy to use and easy to train staff to use in everyday sales operations.

Minpunten:

Revel backend is confusing until one is familiar with abilities. POS interface can prove confusing for processing returns and exchanges of Merchandise. The sales interface can be clunky for processing larger orders.

QSR User

Opmerkingen: Good. Poor experience with ordering replacement equipment.

Pluspunten:

Reporting is very convenient. Real time updates. Flexibility with making menu modifications.

Minpunten:

Troubleshooting software issues. The most recent glitch is with trying to order replacement card reader.Going on 3 months and equipment has yet to be delivered.

Great system for multiple locations

Opmerkingen: Revel has allowed us to centralize the reporting of sales, inventory usage, time keeping, etc. Overall, it is a solid POS system.

Pluspunten:

The backend reporting and ability to view multiple locations from one place.

Minpunten:

The online ordering and loyalty systems are not good.

Reporting and Accuracy

Opmerkingen: Overall I am happy with the way Revel can handle the complexity of the sales, and the real time reporting.

Pluspunten:

Reporting is real time and accurate. Variety of reports is exceptional

Minpunten:

Help desk is hit or miss depending on issue and responder. This is improving but has a ways to go

Extremely overpriced fees and disappointing system!

Pluspunten:

It looks nice and sleek on the counter. The actual POS is pretty straight forward after training and most employees caught on quickly.

Minpunten:

Where to start?? First, the monthly fees are insane considering the poor quality of the product and customer service. For two locations and three terminals, we paid fees to Revel each month. We've experienced a lot of equipment issues (tickets not printing to kitchen, card swipe goes down, mobile unit won't connect and allow orders to be taken, etc) oftentimes in the middle of a lunch rush. We have at least 2 customers every single day tell us that the online ordering isn't working. The system will look like it took their order (and they'll see pending charges on their cards), but they'll either get an error message or nothing at all. We often have people show up to pick up the order they placed online only to realize that it never came through on our system, but Revel still posts the charges as pending and it doesn't drop off the card for 3 days....not a fun thing to tell customers! We have not had a great experience with customer service, and often end up on the phone for over an hour (again, often during a lunch rush). We've had several instances where no one was ever able to answer our issue. Our accountants (who exclusively do restaurants) have found errors in reports (including tax reports for the day) multiple times. Overall, this system just doesn't live up to the quality that should come with such high fees. I called and emailed to put in our notice of cancellation at the end of our 18-month contract (they require 30 days, I put in my written notice 60 days, since their team hasn't been super responsive), I at first would get no response. When I finally did they told me that I couldn't put in my request until 30 days, which just seemed odd to me.

Skeptical at first...

Opmerkingen: After months of wrangling with the decision of which system to invest in I cautiously went forward with Revel. 2 terminal system only so if it didn't work out the damages would be minimal. I learned the hard way jumping in with two feet real quick with Clover. (Different business than the one I bought Revel for. The CC processor is really to blame for saying that Clover is a good system for full service restaurants and I'm to blame for not verifying.) That was a disaster. Paying monthly for a pile of stuff I never went live with. Back to Revel. So many negative reviews made me really worried but after so much research, a: it seemed like it was very robust, more than any other cloud based system, something that would be difficult to quickly outgrow, b: relatively cheap entry cost, albeit the most expensive ongoing costs (more on that later), and c: every system turns out to have overwhelming negative reviews by my count.
After reading all the reviews 2 things stuck out to me. One, I was real concerned about the support teams. It was such a common theme amongst so many review sites. Two, I sensed a bit of naivete on many of the negative reviews. After reading between the lines I figured this was a very complex system and one would have to put forth a lot of effort to get it set up and working well for your business. It does not plug and play. It could be but you would be barely scratching the surface of what it is capable of. The lack of support made it seem like someone with little experience with computers and or POS systems should stay far away. We have been live for over a month and I felt compelled to get on here and tell about my experience. Completely exceeded my expectations. To be clear, it has been a challenge getting it all where it is now. We went live 16 days after it arrived in the mail. That's not enough time. My own fault for dragging my feet. Give yourself 30 days. That would be a nice luxury. Plan on adapting it to your business. This system is designed for such a broad spectrum of businesses so don't expect it to be perfect just for you. That will take time. We have so much more tweaking and customizing ahead. Recipe builds, ingredient unit and cost data etc. You will only get out what you put in. The support that comes with the system combined with the fact that you get lifetime updates as the system is improved and having features added makes the monthly cost worth it to me. Thanks to an agent of NY for giving me all the information I needed without any of the typical sales pressures. I will be adding the self serve kiosk sometime this month. Can't wait to bring that exciting feature to our customers.

Pluspunten:

Basic programming is relatively easy, uploading large amounts of items via excel spreadsheet was great. The support has been awesome! We have made a few mistakes on our end and they have gotten us back on track, plus quickly been able to guide us through some more complex feature programming. No issues have gone unresolved and none have gone into the 2nd day. No issues have been in any way critical or serious either.

Minpunten:

Even though our system is 100% hardwired it still requires an access point that is wireless. I don't like the potential issues with wireless. A few days ago one of the terminals was having a spotty connection issue.

Revel Systems for Table Service Lacks VERY VERY VERY Basic Tip Report for Servers

Opmerkingen: Before you buy Revel ask the sales rep to try to print a basic tip report with a server log in prior to batching out at the end of the day. It's not currently possible unless you give your server full financial access.

Pluspunten:

Revel Systems syncs with Quickbooks better than any other system I'm aware of. They most often sell the equipment with higher-end networking and wireless access points such as Meraki or Ubiquiti whereas others use residential Netgear, Linksys, or TP Link which jeopardizes the stability of using a tablet as your POS.

Minpunten:

This oversight by Revel is ridiculous. However, are you table service and do you need your servers or other employees to take credit card tips out of the cash drawer at the end of their shift? Or leave a receipt in the drawer of how much they took out? If so it's not currently possible with Revision 2.22.9-61 or below for a server to print a basic tip report (unless you give them full financial access which includes labor rates for all other employees.). The iPad assigns the tip to whoever pays out the ticket when the customer leaves. So if your host uses his or her pin to close the ticket and the customer adds a tip that ticket is then assigned to the host rather than the waiter or waitress that helped them on the front end of revel. Furthermore, the manager can't even see a server's tips to pay out the credit card tips accurately from iPad until he or she has batched out at the end of the day. The only solution after two years of trying to remedy this situation for CajunKitchenCafe.com is to pull the report from a laptap on the backend after the point of sale has been batched at the end of the day or put the credit card tips on the employees paycheck which is a huge change to culture for most restaurants that have been in business for as long as Cajun Kitchen.

Customer since 2012: Easy to use, excellent features, poor customer service. Be careful...

Pluspunten:

This system is highly customizable and easy to use. Reports are excellent and Revel does a nice job of continuously updating the backend to be more useful. Keeping track of employee hours is easy and efficient.

Minpunten:

We have been a customer since 2012 and Revel has changed the playing field: 1) Revel now charges more per terminal per month if you choose to not use their credit card processing service. This wasn't the case when we signed up. 2) We purchased 2 scales in 2012 and two more for a second location in 2014. Revel's updated system no longer supports these peripherals. Revel offered me a discount for replacement of these scales for ones that work. Not good enough! This same situation occurred earlier with printers which I had to repurchase. In addition to changing the playing field, the customer service is not good. Expect the system to go down at least 3 to 4 times a year when Apple upgrades their iOS. Revel has changed their business model. They are now in the business of credit card processing. I see this as a sign of a struggling business and would be concerned about their longevity. 3) Confusing payment structure.

We use Revel for our restaurant for the last 2 years and it's challenging

Opmerkingen: It's easy to use, at least the front part and it's popular among employees a lot of locations used Revel and when we have new employee it's not rock in science to learn it, that if he/she doesn't' already knows it from a previous job.

Pluspunten:

It's pretty easy to use at lease the front end, the back end can be more user friendly, I'm able to update things really fast (menu items) even on our website menu, once I do it in Revel. It's running smoothly, never had a hardware problem with it and the communication between back end and from end is just a click away.

Minpunten:

It's pretty expensive, comparing with other softwares, customers service support is not that fast or knowledgeable (at least with the things I needed), for example I've called customers support 5 days ago, then I've submitted an email on the 8th and today is 14th and I haven't hear from you guys. The Inventory and Recipe books were so hard to use and really time consuming (example: if I buy one item in Grams and I want to put it in the recipe in once I have to make the transformation). The price of the items is not updating according to the last purchasing price (if you're entering Invoices in Revel) also it's not giving me the option to run a report and see the price fluctuation for one Purchased Item, or by Invoices by Items or orders by categories (is not helping me at all regarding the information I need for Inventory). In order to integrate with some systems I had to pay and don't think that's normal.

Trust the Bad Reviews

Opmerkingen: For the sake of easy reading, I will simply say that at 49 years old, I have never had a worse experience in terms of product capability, professionalism within a company, accountability, and most of all, service. So bad was the product and service, that I willing gave up the initial expense, to allow myself to walk away from any contractual obligation. And this was after only months of use. There is too much negative to put down in a review. We literally had issues with every system of the program: setting up the system, the loyalty program, programming the system, credit card processing, state taxes, and revel not understanding restaurants and the nomenclature of the industry. Advice: Look for a system that clearly outlines their service obligations. Make sure that you are able to speak to someone in the company, and not to an outsourced panel of phone answers who's only response is, "I am sorry that you are having this problem" and who are in no way able to offer solutions to your issues. You will spend hours on the phone during the life of your revel relationship pulling out your hair, yelling things at people overseas that are not typically in your vocabulary or character to say, and ultimately so frustrated that you too, will be looking for ways out of this bad relationship.

Pluspunten:

Few

Minpunten:

Many

Not a fan

Opmerkingen: I am not happy with the system. I don't think my training was great, we continue to have issues and I spend too much time on the phone attempting to fix things. Mobile devices and gift cards are still an issue. I have not been able to devote the time needed to fix the discount issues. I have had mixed results

Pluspunten:

Mobile ordertakers. However they are a constant problem and we continue to have issues with them.

Minpunten:

Difficulty with spitting guest checks. Cause multiple challenges with discounts. Overall discount platform. Difficult to use and not meeting my needs. Gift card have been a consistent problem with much time spent on the phone with support people, but still no resolution. Too many issues overall. Today the credit cards didn't work because of some technical issue in support. They got it fixed and it worked fine for a few hours then it stopped working again. Too many issues that steal too much of my time. the system should be working for me, but instead It seems to make my job harder.....

An expensive

Opmerkingen: The Revel system is not for all businesses. The sales reps will tell you that the Revel system is capable of everything that all other POS systems will do. However to accomplish the same functions as others it is not as easy as they make it seem. We have considered switching to an alternate POS system because the complicated structure of the Revel system takes quite a bit of work to manage.

Pluspunten:

The employee management features are good. It easy to create employee schedules and track employee profits and sales.

Minpunten:

We switched to Revel from QuickBooks POS because we wanted to move to a cloud based POS. Our goal was to be able to manage our retail store and build an e-commerce business. We were told that the Revel system was capable of everything that QuickBooks POS did and much more. However, once we began building it out we quickly realized it was not capable of doing what the sales rep told us it would nor did it have many of the features we used in QB. It took us nearly six months to completely rebuild our entire inventory system, because Revel did not support selling a single product by multiple units of measure (ex. soda by the can, case or 6 pack). Now that we finally have the system in place we've had problems with the inventory management system giving us false quantities resulting in over purchasing and/or running out of key products. They also release new system updates and products every couple of months, however the new releases often have problems and many of the tech support personnel have no idea how to fix problems.

Revel Systems is a JOKE with TERRIBLE tech support

Minpunten:

Revel systems has been nothing but a joke since I have gotten it. Owner's can't reassign delivery orders to a new driver? Drivers are able to cash drop to NO WHERE when the wrong till is used? I can't check another drive in, as an owner, on my log in without it going into MY virtual till? Once again, Revel Systems is a JOKE to use as a delivery POS system. The support team is absolutely clueless, everyone has to talk to their higher up colleague just to tell me they can't do anything about it. At this point, I have more knowledge then some of these techs that are from Lithuania. Terrible TERRIBLE customer service, TERRIBLE product, and TERRIBLE value for what you get.

Powerful tool but sometimes clunky

Opmerkingen: Usually works very well, not my favourite because of user experience and aesthetics however.

Pluspunten:

it enabled us to move to contactless ordering and payment online during pandemic restrictions.

Minpunten:

I find it looks quite ugly, the design architecture does not feel as intuitive to me as other competing products I've used. Setup was quite gruelling. Restrictions on what card terminals can now be used with the software feels like a step back.

Tons of customizations!

Opmerkingen: No other system had the flexibility to provide what we needed. Customization took months to get sorted out (and I am a network engineer during the day). Despite all the hard ships I couldn't imagine switching again. I still experiment with competitors that have lower fees, however can't match half the features and flexibility I get with Revel.

Pluspunten:

The ability to customize the POS Online ordering built in at decent rate (may be more expensive now) IPad based (flexibility) Integrates with many payment processors (heads up on gateway fees)

Minpunten:

Expensive Seems like they are moving to a la carte pricing structure (more expensive) Customer Support is based in Philippines, while sometimes good they don't really understand sometimes

Best and more robust system in the market

Pluspunten:

The best thing about this System is the easy and intuitive interface. It greatly facilitates the operations of the day and allows us to always work in a better way. It has, also, a number of options and improvements that allow me to adapt to my needs, especially the part of the discounts. They are the best!

Minpunten:

The bad thing is the implementation, being such a complete software it takes a long time to configure all the functions to your liking to work in a better way. However, with practice and patience, it is possible to get ahead.

Don't Use If You Care About Success In Business

Opmerkingen: Absolutely terrible across the board.

Minpunten:

10.5 hours to connect system to wifi on day 1.Over 200 hours customer service calls.System goes down daily and they can't fix it. This company has the worst system, obviously a beta launch with patchwork resolutions. A prime example of the failure of large company to consider the damage they cause small businesses with their negligence.Don't use Como either they are just ad bad as a partner.

Shopped around and finally found the best

Opmerkingen: As a franchise operation with 16 locations that have run 3 previous point-of-sale systems, I can confidently say Revel is the best. It isn't simply that their system is easy to learn, or that they have almost every capability that you can think of, but it's the fact that they keep making it better. Their software continues to change and evolve to fit my stores' needs. I've submitted several feature requests that have already been released in updates. When a franchisee has an issue, I can get a knowledgeable tech support agent on the line in minutes that can help resolve it quickly. We looked high and low for an enterprise solution that fit our model and I'm positive we made the right choice with Revel.

Pluspunten:

Easy to use front end with a robust, feature-packed browser-based back end that makes multi-unit support effortless.

Minpunten:

It is a bit pricey compared to some other systems, but the quality and support you get is worth it in every way.

de la mer experience with Revel

Pluspunten:

- Only iPad POS system on the market (as far as I know) that can deal with items priced by weight. - constant improvements on software being done (both UI and management consol) - enterprise management system that allows the management of multiple business units. - excellent 24hr/day technical support - a lot of flexibility in the system

Minpunten:

- lack of stability with Moneris pin pad integration, ongoing issue of POS and pin pad not communicating at random. - difficult to find how to do certain functions in the management consol (not intuitive - for example searching for a subject through what seems like appropriate keys words will not allows bring up the items) - product costs not linked to inventory costs