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About Revel Systems
Revel Systems powers the ambitions of restaurants with a robust cloud-based POS and business management platform.
Easy to use POS system, I see it in many retail stores.
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.
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Just what I needed (and didn't even know that I needed!)
Comments:
We have now been live with our new Revel POS for a week. Naturally, there were a few issues during the switch over, but most of those were a) problems with my setup and b) easily corrected with help from the on-boarding team, tech support folks and very comprehensive online documentation. As of this writing, I believe we are finally “there.”
I am really liking Revel’s product. To be honest, I had no idea how much I was missing out on these past 4 years. I had just assumed that a mature and viable POS product did not exist in the iPad/Cloud arena. I assumed, incorrectly it would seem, that to get such a product I would have to one day shell out thousands or tens of thouands of dollars for one of the “big guys” with expensive hardware. I’m glad to have been proven incorrect in that assumption.
In my mind, one of the absolute best features of Revel is that it is so highly configurable. I have been able to create a POS that meets my business needs as well as the needs of my employees and guests. So far I have not had to “settle” for a configuration that works for “most” people. Instead I have found that I can tell Revel how I want it to work for me and it just works that way. I've never understood why most cloud-based POS companies think that they know more about running our businesses than those of us who are in the trenches. I have been delighted to realize that Revel is willing to put in the effort to create a POS that works they way we work. There is no one-size-fits-all, especially in restaurants. Revel's designers and engineers seem to understand that fact.
Little things like the following mean the world to me:
1) I can specify negative modifiers — ones that deduct from the price. Now my guests can truly have it their way and only pay for what they want. While I've always run my cafe that way, only Revel has allowed me to do that without a lot of unnecessary steps.
2) I can set up default modifiers, and more importantly when a guest doesn’t want that default it is easy to specify at the POS and it is obvious for the kitchen.
3) The flexibility of defining “one size fits all” modifier groups, and tailoring those to the needs of each product that uses them, has made my life so much easier. The modifier features are amazing, and I've just begun to scratch the surface of what is available.
4) And don’t even get me started on recipes. How I ever lived without those in my POS is a mystery. I guess I lived without them because I never knew I needed them!
In the past two days, my employees and I have been able to identify menu items whose gross margins are dragging us down. Since all of our products come with so many options, this has always been a hard, time-consuming thing to do, involving lots of spreadsheets and number crunching. Now that I have nearly all of my recipes defined, I’m able to run one Product Mix report whenever I want and identify problems before they become catastrophes. That alone makes the “extra” expense of the monthly Revel hosting fee worth it.
Even in a small shop, such as mine, inventory control is a nightmare. It has become very obvious to me that after a month or two this task will get much easier. Once I have finished tweaking my product and recipe definitions, I’m looking forward to “knowing” my inventory status with just the touch of a button. I know it won’t be completely accurate — no theoretical inventory system can possibly account for human error. But, I already can tell that it will be much more accurate than I’ve ever had before, and it will be more accurate without the drudgery of weekly physical inventories.
I would be remiss if I did not give a shout-out to your on-boarding and tech support people. They all proved to be very helpful, and very willing to let me go at my pace in this process. I am a tech geek from the days of Univac and IBM mainframes, punch cards and programming languages that are long dead and buried. Though I am now a chef I have never lost my love of all things tech. It was a pleasure to work with people who let me control the process as I was learning Revel. Their on-boarding team is willing to do as much, or as little, as their new clients need to get them up and running quickly.
If I had to sum up my early experiences with Revel and the switch over, that sentence would be ---- I now feel like I am more in control of my business, that I understand my business better.
As we enter our fifth year, a year that looks to be like it will be on schedule to be our first true profit year, that is huge. I'm looking forward to learning how Revel can help make that first profit year even more profitable.
Sure, there is always room for improvement. Revel, like most mPOS companies, needs to get their integrated EMV/contactless functionality up and running, not just for one or two payment processing companies, but for all of them. Having said that, I realize how expensive and how difficult that task is. But, if they get it done quickly and correctly, they will be a hard company to beat.
A few other reviewers mentioned one suggestion I will echo -- be prepared to spend some time learning what you have with Revel, and what it can do for you. Myself, I spent hours looking at every setting, reading the help bubbles for every setting, and making notes about what I did and did not want to implement. I asked a lot of questions. I watched a lot of videos. When I wasn't sure, I created tests, ran them and looked at the results.
Most importantly, I spent two days keying the same orders into both my current POS and Revel, looking for discrepancies and errors in my setup. Sure, that all took a lot of time. But taking a lot of time up front means spending less time fighting fires after going live.
What I'm trying to say is don't think you are going to get your hardware and go live in a week. I budgeted a month for training, setup and troubleshooting before I ever thought about going live. I think a month is the MINIMUM time needed in order to do it right, and I have set up a lot of POS systems in my career. Remember -- as restaurants, our POS is the hub of our data and data analysis. We wouldn't short-change our recipe development, or training our cooks and other staff. To succeed, we need great data that tells us everything we need to know about our business. Revel can be that vital hub, but only if we take the necessary time and effort in the beginning.
And, with that, I'll step down from my soapbox.
Pros:
Flexibility -- ability to configure to work the way MY BUSINESS works Customer support and training
Cons:
Needs to get their integrated EMV/contactless payment integration up and running. Currently that only works for one or two payment processors.
Revel Systems Response
8 years ago
Hello Chip, Thank you so much for your detailed input. There's so much useful advice here! We agree that with a robust platform it definitely takes some time to customize, but once you do, you will reap the benefits of having intelligence about your business easily available. We hope to continue to continue to provide stellar service so that you can run your profitable cafe. Your shout-outs to Support and Onboarding will be passed on! Thank you so much for your support and belief in our product and what we are working so hard to accomplish. Cheers and thank you again. -Sarah, Community Manager, Revel Systems
System Admin for Beauty Company with 4+ years of Revel experience
Comments: 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.
Pros:
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.
Cons:
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.
100% Fail - Waste of Valuable Time and Money
Comments: Long and short, our experience with the Revel systems POS (our intent is to use it in Retail application) has been a nightmare. The problems started early on in being sold hardware components that were not designed to work in the way we needed to utilize them - despite us being very detailed in what we needed - and despite the Sales reps assurances they would (specifically the barcode scanners and printers). We purchased our system in Mid-March but due to delays in the build-out of our store front and arrival of inventory components we were not actually able to begin the on-boarding/product and inventory load until Mid-May and that's when things turned awful. Our initial product information load seemed to go well, however when we attempted to load the corresponding inventory via the method instructed it would not load. Come to find out we were given incorrect instructions and fields/information that should have been on the load sheet were not there. That issue began 5/15 and was finally resolved 5/17. On 5/16 another set of issues started during the attempt at setting up our receipt with logo, company info, etc (figured we'd do that while the inventory thing got figured out. Wrong!) That was finally figured out and resolved by our onboard rep on 5/17 at the end of the day... with zero explanation as to what the issue was and if it could happen again. Since we were finally able to go ahead and get the first phase of products/inventory info loaded (our onboard rep did it for us because no matter what or how we tried it was unsuccessful) we scheduled our POS front end training on 5/19 - which also was a bust because we learned that none of our printers were correctly configured before our system was sent. This also stalled us from being able to barcode the items in the store until 5/26 when that issue was finally resolved with one of our barcode printers and the receipt printer (it is now 6/15 and the second printer for our warehouse still hasn't been configured... we have literally been dealing with daily issues with the backend system and front end system all this time and haven't even been able to address that yet). Other issues that occurred (that are now resolved but no one can explain the how or why it happened, or will it happen again?) where the backend system spontaneously dumped my login information on 6/7. Our rep basically had to reset me up (2 more days down). Thought we were finally good... got to the actual POS and discovered that the login PINs for myself and 3 of our employees did not work (despite the 3 employees info being present and correct in the backend - my information erased again and defaulted to a generic 1234). Got that sorted a couple days later. This weeks issue has been with the integration to Quick Books online. The POS is sending inaccurate info to QBO - and of course, no one can tell us why, or worse, how to correct it. One generally assumes that in business accurate financial reporting is kind of a thing... I mean Revel hasn't had a problem charging us the monthly fee all this time and I'm sure they track that somewhere, right? Naturally in the month from 5/15 to today, 6/15, we finally hit our limit and requested information on returning the system (being willing to take the risk of being without a POS system at our opening and just processing manually through QBO). Our onboard rep passed us on to Client Relations and a few days later we finally get a generic, and frankly offensive, email from customer rep that in no way acknowledged our issues and frustrations - but instead had a copy of our Revel contact attached. I assume the point was to put it out there that Revel only has a 30 day return policy (keep in mind rep didn't say that in his email... he pretty much implied "figure it out for yourself"). Of course, since we bought our system in March we are well beyond the 30 day limit. I really could keep going. I am just shy of now 100 emails back and forth about issue, after issue, after issue - none of which truly got any clear resolution or explanation. I'll save you some time. Do not buy this system. Its bad, the customer support is worse, and like us some of you will likely end up tossing a system in the storage room and going to another platform.
Cons:
Please see comments for a play by play and definitely look to other systems (the more I look into this, the more negative reviews I am finding that are sadly similar to our own).
Amazing features and functionality for accurate business analysis
Comments: Give your customer service agents at your call centers raises! I have spent dozens of hours on the phone and talked to numerous people from all over and every single one of them has surpassed all expectations of product knowledge and customer service! That makes a world of difference!
Pros:
The features from a business owner's perspective are unparalleled. Everything is totally customizable tofu the specific and unique needs of individual businesses. The customer service alone makes this worth the money. I have never looked forward to calling customer service before, but the training of the employees of not just product knowledge, but also customer service is absolutely unmatched.
Cons:
I have three specific areas of opportunity for Revel. 1) Taking payments of split checks (especially when one guest leaves earlier than others) is the worst system of any modern systems I have ever worked with. After splitting the checks, it is impossible to change the way you split the items if one guest has already paid and left. This really needs to be addressed if the product is going to be marketed to full service restaurants that have to deal with split payments on almost every party of 3 or more. 2) While I appreciate its modern focus, it is not easy to work with if a restaurant still uses paper gift certificates. 3) We were a "Guinea Pig" test restaurant for a salesman that had never worked with Revel before. He provided absolutely no help at all in setting up the system as he didn't know much about it himself. Even after he got back from training, he had to call customer service to answer simple questions I had. For such a complex and intricate system, there should be protocols in place for better training of the people selling it to be able to set it up for the customers.
Revel POS system
Comments: Same system used for different areas of our business where we had different POS systems in past. Easier for administration, bookeeping, etc.
Pros:
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.
Cons:
"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.
Alternatives Considered:
Just Keeps Getting Worse
Pros:
Onboarding was good enough, friendly staff. Support too. Training staff on the POS is easy
Cons:
It feels like every SaaS company gets to nickel and diming their clients at some point, and I guess Revel is at that point. $12/month/store to look up sales data beyond a year back. This is extremely problematic for accounting purposes. We're already paying $6,000 annually for the service and various add-ons... come on. But, we're locked in now - what's another $144/year? Pfft. They recommended a gift card solution that, $500 later, didn't even work. We got an apology from the agent who recommended it, so they admitted fault, but considered it fixed with a $25 credit on our account. Quickbooks integration is garbage. Networking for the POS systems is a mess. Reports are fine, not great.
Works Well for our Small Business
Comments: Overall, Revel is a good company. We are a small convenience store at a marina and campground and they are working well for us. One of the reasons we went with Revel is because they have teamed up with Shell Corp. to create an integration for fuel pumps and the Revel point of sales. Revel is the cheapest option on the market, that I was able to find, to be able to offer my customers pay at the pump options. This is still in the works, but they are making steady progress and I am excited for when we can try it out.
Pros:
Revel is easy for employees to learn (even the non-tech employees) and to use. They have good updates; they listen to their customers about what is needed and then try to implement it. Our store is an hour away from the main office, and we are able to see the inventory from the office to place orders for the store! The reports are useful, varied and well laid out for ease of reading.
Cons:
The integration between QuickBooks Desktop and Revel has been a bit tricky. I wish their support team was a bit better at understanding how the two programs talk to each other. I have found that I need to have the Revel Support team tell me how Revel is supposed to talk to QuickBooks and then I'll have to go to the QuickBooks support or forum to figure out how to set up QuickBooks so that it does what Revel intended.
Tons of customizations!
Comments: 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.
Pros:
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)
Cons:
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
Revel Systems Response
7 years ago
Hi Chris, Thank you for the review! We appreciate your input and it's great to hear you like the flexibility you get with Revel. Our Support team, however, is no longer based in the Philippines, as of about a year and a half ago. We have U.S. and Lithuanian-based Support now and we have gotten great feedback. Hope your experiences of late have been great ones. Cheers, Sarah at Revel
Revel is a smart choice for small business owners looking to use the iPad as their POS
Comments: A POS system that is reliable most of the time.
Pros:
There are many POS providers out there today but I think Revel does a great job for small business owners. They utilize a familiar hardware (iPad) and turn it into a POS system that's easy to navigate. Being in a rush or training new employees can be a disaster if you have the wrong POS system but Revel does a great job with their easy layout.
Cons:
Customer service can be disastrous at times, especially if your POS system is down during a rush. It doesn't happen frequently but it does happen so you should be aware of that before making your choice.
Revel Systems Response
6 years ago
Hi There, Thank you so much for the review and feedback! We are sorry to hear that you do experience the occasional outage -- if you have additional info regarding an issue of that nature, we would love to hear it to address it with our agents and engineers. Please feel free to contact me at [email protected]. Kind Regards, Sarah, Customer Advocacy Manager at Revel
Alternatives Considered:
Good idea, good realization on the hardware concept, but buggy software
Comments: Sales, inventory, predictions, CRM, marketing - all nicely done.
Pros:
It is full wifi, full cloud, very versatile and very nice and sleek.
Cons:
iOS only, apple only, comes out expensive, heavy toll on the pay as you go needs (licensing tied to number of terminals)
12 mos w/o Online Store, Still Billing Me over $500 Per Month!
Comments: Predatory, negligent, damaging. Never use this company, they outsource everything. You get a different person who has never seen your account every time. Hours of useless service calls and no one has the same story. We had to find out through months of labor that they cannot do what we signed the contract for due to skimp-flating their software and removing features with V2 Online Ordering.
Pros:
Nothing!
Cons:
Everything! Over a year ago we spent 10+ hours on phone on initial set up, over 100 hours on customer service, got bumped between V1 of their online ordering system and V2, neither of which have a complete set of features allowing for pick up and shipping. That was falsely sold and they are in breach of contract unable to fulfill the terms. The matter is being transferred to our attorney for resolution, yet another additional cost we have been burdened with by this terrible company. Someone must be getting paid for them to grow so fast, sad they can't service their customers effectively, fulfill on contract terms, and follow with predatory billing. They have nearly put our small business out of business and are still taking the money out of our bank account despite blocking charges.
Run don't walk AWAY from Revel POS
Comments: At the end when we cancelled was the crowning blow when they acted like complete weasels trying to charge us for one store and only cancelling one. . this went on for months. As I said--after dealing with Revel and their horrible customers service I am convinced this company is run out of someone's basement or garage. Run don't walk AWAY from Revel POS as your POS for your business. There are many other much better options out there.
Pros:
Ease of use for staff and ability to implement our own gift cards & loyalty programs.
Cons:
Pretty much everything else was horrible. Reporting, customer service, adding products and modifiers was a nightmare. Getting issues resolved --just getting someone intelligent on the phone was a challenge--half the time I solved the issue myself while waiting for them to try to resolve and figure out something. This was after waiting sometimes an hour for someone to actually pick up after you spent time on hold. All while trying to run your business.
Extremely overpriced fees and disappointing system!
Pros:
It looks nice and sleek on the counter. The actual POS is pretty straight forward after training and most employees caught on quickly.
Cons:
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.
Revel Systems Response
7 years ago
Hi Meghan, I know we have already spoken over the phone about this, but I do apologize for your experience. It sounds like you encountered a known issue with the Online Ordering that has since been fixed. I apologize as I know how frustrating that can be when you are in the midst of service. We do appreciate your feedback and, again, apologize that we weren't able to work on a resolution for you sooner. Best regards, Sarah, Community Manager at Revel
WORST POS EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE!
Comments: Not in mixed company
Pros:
It looks nice and professional on our iPad. To look at the homepage, you'd (think) it was a sophisticated system.
Cons:
Rather than crashing the site with my bitter, endless ranting about this POS, (and no, that does not stand for "Point Of Sale"), let me just say this: This is THE most unintuitive system we have EVER used. And no, that is not just my opinion. With 6 other employees who use this thing (and 2 of them are former IT professionals), every single one of us agree it is truly the worst. NOTHING is where you would think it should be, and once you find it, you're going to have to go through multiple steps to find what you're looking for. There are multiple ways to perform many functions, but only one of those methods actually work. It's up to you to figure out which way will work. For example, you can hit the "add customer" button but it doesn't really ad them. You have to go to another screen to ad the customer and this method usually works, but you have to figure this stuff out on your own. And when you tell customer service about something that doesn't work, they just tell you "oh yeah, you can't do it that way." Well, why there is an option to do it that way? And the "backend" is just a cruel joke. I don't even bother to try and see what my employees have sold anymore because it's simply too much effort and headache to look anything up. There is no place where you can simply look up a customer, see what they purchased and their contact, shipping info. All of these steps must be done painstakingly separately. And their customer service people seem to know they're trying to help you with a shit product. Lots of long periods of silence on the phone as they try desperately to find a nice way of telling you there is no way to get the damn thing to do the elementary task you need it to do. Oh, and the cost.
Revel Systems Response
6 years ago
Hi Gary, I have reached out to you via email directly to collect your feedback. That invitation is still open and our product developers are always looking for customer input on functionality and UI. Thank you for sharing your feedback with us on Software Advice, regardless. I am sorry to hear you have experienced frustration with our platform and we are continually working to improve Revel. Regards, Sarah, Advocacy Manager at Revel
We use Revel for our restaurant for the last 2 years and it's challenging
Comments: 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.
Pros:
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.
Cons:
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.
Expensive, expensive, expensive
Comments: After using this system for a little over a year, I would recommend anyone shopping for POS services look for a solution that has dedicated hardware. An iPad may be great for personal use, but a solution with actual dedicated hardware would have eliminated a lot of headaches for us. The iPad's themselves have numerous features that we don't really need to operate our POS, so it's kind of a waste.
Pros:
The user face is extremely sleek. Appearance wise it's a total 10. It was also very easy for our servers to learn how to use.
Cons:
The cost is ridiculously high. Revel also likes to make changes that incur higher fees with the various vendors needed to process credit cards. A few months ago our payment gateway monthly fee raised high with absolutely no notice or real explanation as to why. When we called to ask about what changes were actually made, the reps could only seem to say that some security features had been upgraded. Really felt like we were just being gouged for more money. The set up process was daunting as well. We have since had numerous issues that were only resolved when I posted a negative review on another forum. So customer service isn't equitable to the monthly cost of the service. Syncing issues have also been a huge headache for us. The check splitting functionality has lost us money numerous times and caused terrible delays in our server's ability to help guests. Checks will merge themselves back together after a payment has been processed and its usually almost impossible to correct once it happens.
Good but troublesome
Pros:
Very mobile, orders can be sent in immediately. Very easy to use as far and table waitstaff. Over abundance of information once it is set up and functioning its great.
Cons:
There is too much needless information on the back end. its very overwhelming because you have to sift through it every time you use it. There should be custom saves for only the information you use in the reports/options. Its retail and other business type options need to be addressed. This is the main reason i would not suggest using it. The constant updates can be useful but buggy as well. For example a split ticket transaction will literally crash the program (this is as of 1/2/2018). A undressed issue for a month now. Its more like a application a engineer designed rather than one that the end user would find useful. I have use Revel POS for years and still do but am now looking for a replacement.
Revel Systems Response
7 years ago
Hi Chris, Thank you for the feedback and we are glad to hear that you like Revel overall. I have asked our Client Relations team to get in touch with you to resolve your issue with the split checks. Our product developers are always looking for input on design. I will reach out to you directly to set up a time to collect your suggestions. Best Regards, Sarah, Advocacy Manager at Revel
Excellent System that Works Great
Comments: We have had others system and this just works great for us. It has a pretty good inventory system and a host of reports. The key is its makes the sales process easy. I have no problem giving Revel a strong recommendation.
Pros:
Our company is the merchandise concessionaire for Athletic Events at Army West Point and we are big fans of the Revel System. At our latest game, we had 11 stands and were able to push through almost 2000 transactions in a little over four hours. The system has worked flawless for us and our gross sales is up over 20% this season because of the ease of sales. We added a scanner and the fans love it. Combined with a strong credit card provider we have our sales available for us usually in 48 hours. The system works for us in many locations on batteries and its Verizon wi-fi is very good. If we have wi-fi trouble on site with a large crowd...it holds transaction and puts it through when the wi-fi is up. Our staff...not big techies...has had NO problems after expressing a feeling that the system would make it hard for customers to be serviced. We are big fans because it is helping our business. We now do almost four to one credit cards over cash purchases.
Cons:
You will find Revel is a little more expensive than other systems. They also make a decent profit on the hardware. But it is clearly you get what you pay for....when you have great service and a strong working system....you have to pay. This is a professional system.
A Nightmare...probably a good product but will take you almost a year to learn it.
Comments: Once we were able to talk to tier two people, things improved.
Pros:
Lots of good reports ... if you finally figure out how to get to them. Till is good. Lots of info in "University" must read it two or three times before it makes sense.
Cons:
Labor intensive, requires many many steps to accomplish one thing. Has left our accounting in shambles Unforgivable i.e If you make a mistake in entering purchase order, you can't fix it . It just stays there forever "Integrate with QB' ... does not fully integrate...i.e does not integrate line for line First Tier support only repeats what you tell them is the problem, no fixes Took two weeks to get the wiring set up right d/t false directions from support Has "Chat" but nobody chats... just refers you to something else
Revel Systems Response
7 years ago
Hi Clarice, I am sorry to hear that you have had some trouble learning Revel. Our platform is pretty robust and can definitely take some time to learn since there are over 500 settings to allow you to customize your point of sale. We highly recommend working with an account manager to optimize your setup and to help you achieve your overall business goals. That said, your feedback is being heard and appreciated. In terms of editing Purchase Orders in Revel, POs are editable until they are Saved and Finalized - once you Finalize a PO, you cannot go back in and edit that PO, which is why the system asks you if you are sure you would like to Finalize. We do this, to provide peace of mind and safeguard you against behavior that could be flagged in an audit or employee theft. There are definitely some language differences between QuickBooks Desktop/POS and Revel's integration. There are many unique properties in both platforms which can take some time to fully design, develop, test, and, then, implement. We are always open to feedback about specific features that are needed or functionality that could be improved! Please feel free to email your suggestions to me at [email protected]. Happy to set up some time to chat. Best Regards, Sarah at Revel
The worst multi-Store POS on the market
Comments: Do your homework first and be thorough. DO not believe everything they tell you. The salespeople are polished. Serious waste of time and money.
Pros:
There are absolutely no Pros to this system. We installed in in June 2017, it is now February 2018 and we still have ongoing issues that are unresolved. The most recent is today with testing the "Online Store". The credit card batches do not match the bank deposits. Revel points at the cc merchant who in turn points back at Revel. Nothing resolved, and nobody will to take responsibility for it. Save your time and money, look for something else.
Cons:
confusing, does not track inventory as it should, does not interface correctly with Quickbooks, support is the WORST. No help, we wasted thousands of dollars on this system.
Revel Systems Response
7 years ago
Hi Brent, I am really sorry to hear that you have had such a poor experience overall. I have taken a look at your ticket history and I do apologize that it looks like you encountered a bug. However, we are definitely working on the issue and as of 2/6 the issue has been resolved. Unfortunately with bugs fixes are not always immediate but we do attempt to push them through as quickly as possible. I can also see that our agents are waiting for the green light from you to integrate QuickBooks. While I do apologize for the frustration you have experienced so far, our customer support teams are actively working with you and happy to assist you with your business objectives. Regards, Sarah at Revel
Innovative QSR POS solution, terrible customer service and poor reliability
Comments: Although it’s an innovative product, the quality of customer service is horrible. Three of our restaurants in Europe run on Revel and we have seen significant decrease in stability / consistency. Frequent updates in recent months have caused complete service failure during lunch time (as updates seem to come in at exactly that time). Our account manager is basically helpless, and can only offer us to pay hefty fees to their consultants as well as VIP services in order for us to get support. Far behind NetPos which we use in our other outlets! We halted now the implementation of Revel across our 5 restaurants concepts with 70 outlets and are looking to switch to another provider. Further we tried to implement our mobile app with Revel’s API, turned out it is basically unusable at this stage due to limitation of calls we can make to it.
Pros:
-Innovative cloud based solution -Low Capex vs. other full fledged POS solutions -Hardware can be purchased separate
Cons:
-Poor reliability, frequent updates / changes to the system make it difficult to maintain. Updates which are not announced cause a lot of disruptions in restaurant -Poor customer service -API is poorly documented, limited calls allowed
Revel Systems Response
8 years ago
Hello Chris, I'm very sorry to hear that you're having a poor experience with your system and support. We definitely want to be sure to meet your customer service needs. I will be reaching out to you directly to learn more about how we can turn things around here. We're also happy to work with partners to increase API calls. We do set a limit at the outset of our relationship with our partners but we are always available to increase limits if we realize there is a specific need for one of our valued merchants. Revel's Business Development team will work with the partner providing you the integrated service to find an immediate solution. Thank you for sharing your feedback and for bringing it to our attention. Regards, Sarah, Community Manager, Revel Systems
Using Revel to manage all of my point of sale needs and back office systems
Comments: Revel has been the second POS system I have implemented in my business and it will be the last one for various benefits it has given me compared to previous systems. It is reliable! If there are internet connection problems for either transactions or merchant card processing,
Pros:
Cloud based, so I can access settings and live information from anywhere. Various modifiable functionalities. Back end reporting is extensive with multiple breakdowns of information available which helps me analyze my business' performance. Tech support are determined to help solve every call. They follow up to ensure things are running well. Very happy with the tech support for any small or large issue.
Cons:
It takes a little while to learn how to get around the back office management platform and to be able to fine tune all the settings for your particular business processes. Tech support are always happy to help me find what I need and/or help fix whatever settings might be in question.
Had to get rid of system after 2 years - integration problems with Apple updates. Constant crashing
Comments: It was a learning experience for sure.
Pros:
Easy to add specials and new items, great to check sales and labor costs on my phone wherever I was. Light weight - easy to use.
Cons:
Terminals went out of sync with each other and caused major problems with ordering and reports, affected customer service. Every time Apple does an update the system does not work (2-3 times a year). Customer service is not much of a help. We had to remove the system after 2 years we had so many problems. They still send me daily reports a year later after we cancelled with them.
Revel Systems Response
7 years ago
Hi Thomas, I am really sorry that you had such a poor experience. We have listened to our customers' feedback and we have increased our Beta testing to mitigate potential bugs in conjunction with software releases. Unfortunately, we cannot control Apple's releases, but do our best to time releases with theirs. Your feedback is appreciated. Regards, Sarah at Revel
A great system for our needs and wonderful sales and implementation team!
Comments: I have a hodgepodge of software doing different things and using different printers...Revel Up has integrated all my systems into one system and one set of printers
Pros:
Having detailed and well-thought-out software with lots of controls and options has made our business run much better.
Cons:
I can't close out and email an invoice from the POS system...It lists payment as "deposit " instead of paid.
Unstable POS with little customer support
Pros:
The ability to take orders at a table when it is stable
Cons:
The Revel POS system continually drops out, the backend continually goes down. Our Revel support officer in Sydney claims he is not aware of anyone else having issues. I have phoned several other businesses today, they are all having issues with the Revel dropping out, backend going down, can't reach main POS. Poor customer service based in another country. We are meant to be VIP customers so revel says. Our inventory system is still not working after 5 months. After reading many reviews it seems we are not the only people. No one in Sydney can make decisions and they admit they are left in the dark by America, with one sales consultant admitting it seems we have become another American corporation with no customer support. In over 5 years in Hospitality i have never come across such a poor product that misrepresented.
Revel Systems Response
9 years ago
Bradley, many thanks for taking the time to write this review. I am sorry that you have not had a great experience. As discussed we have been working hard with your team to resolve your issues and one month on things are looking a lot better. Unfortunately things don’t always go to plan however Revel is committed to excellent customer support and also committed to helping Local Shack have restored faith in Revel and get you to the point of being a happy customer. We will continue to check in on a daily basis until you feel that things have greatly improved. We have also increased our local support team to cope with the increased demand for Revel. Many thanks for your patience. Sincerely, Josh Franklin General Manager APAC