Revel Systems Reviews

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.

The only reporting feature I would love to see is comparative reports so I don't have to piece them together. I want to know things like "sales last March versus sales this March", and "labor last month versus this month". That's how we track trends and right now we have to export as excel and wrote our own formulas to analyze this data. Overall, a good system for our small business.

We've been with Revel for about 8 months now. I am on the phone with customer support weekly, nearly daily. Our initial integration with Quickbooks was not well supported by their staff and eventually I had to just teach myself how to get the system set up and integrated. We have constantly had issues that when I contact customer service they tell me they don't know why it happened and it must be a glitch in the software. My credit card machine broke after 7 months and Revel could not figure out how to fix it so I called the manufacturer and they told me it was a software issue. Revel's solution was to trade in for a new one, rather than try to figure out what the software issue was. The first customer service agent I spoke to did not even have the manual for the pin pad that I was using.

Multiple times Revel has stopped speaking to Quickbooks without warning and our data has not been pushed through as it should. I've been told that the exchange feature that is built in to the front end of the system does not actually work and so we should stop using it and do a work around so that our entries into Quickbooks will be correct. My completed invoices have gotten stuck between the Ipad and the back office and the payments have therefore not been received into Quickbooks until I discovered the problem. Revel has multiple times overtaken Quickbooks and changed the vendor information in Quickbooks. After multiple phone calls to customer support for a single issue I've eventually been told that my system is out of date and that's what's causing the problem, but it was never brought up in initial phone calls. In the same vein, there is no indication from Revel that I should update the system. In fact for the last update, the app told me that it was the most up to date, but finally on the back end of Revel there was a warning that I needed to update or my system would be obsolete. In fact I was running the most up to date version of the app, but what needed to be done was to download an entirely new app-that was not made clear in Revel's warning, I just happened to figure it out myself. Furthermore, had I not happened to log into Revel's back end on that particular day, I would not have known that I was required to update.

One day the back office stopped sending our daily emailed reports. When I spoke to customer support they told me that it was because the email addresses where the report was sent were separated by commas and not semi-colons. When I mentioned that the commas had been working for 7 months they told me that it was due to an update on their back end that now required semi-colons. When asked how I was supposed to know that and change it I was told that it had been a "known issue" for over a month and that some businesses had a problem and some didn't so they didn't let customers know about the issue.

With all the issues I've had, I've never been able to speak to a supervisor or had any kind of conciliatory gesture like a reduced price made for me and in fact had to pay shipping to and from returning my credit card machine. When I speak to customer service about issues related to Quickbooks integration, they are not trained on Quickbooks so generally cannot help me.

Overall the system is extremely glitchy and inconsistent. It cannot be counted on to work the same way from day to day.

Works fine for most of our specialty grocery business except as noted above.

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

Revel kept deducting fees from our checking account for 2 months AFTER we closed our business! We informed them in advance of the sale of our business so that there were no surprises. We are a small mom & pop business and needed those funds. The new [sensitive content hidden] did not like the Revel system at all and went to Toast POS instead. We have been unable to be reimbursed for the months that we were closed and [sensitive content hidden] who processes the credit cards has ignored our requests. He has made plenty of money from us and yet continued to deduct money out of our account.

We use Revel as our point of sales system at the restaurant I work in. After switching to revel from a previous program, I was immediately pleased with how easy and intuitive the program is. Splitting checks is extremely easy to do, no matter how many you have to split it into. This was not the case with our old program. It allows the ability to color code categories and even put an image on a button. Another excellent feature is that servers cannot swipe a card or cash out a bill that is not under their name. This eliminates report mix-ups and the hassle of having to calculate how much of another server's tips you ended up with and owe back to them because it can't happen. Overall, Revel was an excellent upgrade and continues to be an excellent program.

Revel itself is a solid system, but it was not until we integrated it with a mobile app platform (one of their partners, who seem to only work with Revel) that we really started to get a return on investment from the Revel system. The two systems work brilliantly together and have transformed not only the customer experience, but also our operational efficiency. Revel itself is only part of the solution, Pepper HQ - check them out at http://pepperhq.com - is the key to unlocking the value and extending the features within Revel and I think Revel have been very clever getting these guys to partner with them - massive advantage over any other EPOS provider.

Good. Poor experience with ordering replacement equipment.

We are existing Revel System customer but I think our 2 year relationship is going to be an end. Changing a POS system is not simple but we still choose to leave must have our reasons. I just want to share my experiences with everyone who might consider marry to them.

1. We were told from their sale rep the QuickBooks integration will 100% work for Canadian customer because of this reason we signed off the deal, however we don't have a chance to test the integration because it was still under development, we should wait till the launch but we can't wait because we need a new system to support our grow. We did reconfirm the QB compatibility again and again so we don't think there will be a problem. We got everything setup and running, about few months later the QuickBooks Integration finally launched but they told us this feature strictly for US customer only?! This case only escalated to their sales team lead and they refused to go further higher, you have no easy way to reach their upper management team unfortunately we dun have any recording or email for the proof, they only offer a free month to settle the case. They would guarantee you everything at the beginning and once you in everything is just too late, we have learned a lesson.

2. We are not pleased and disappointed on how Revel handle system upgrade, almost every single incident causes us problem and certain level of business impact, we need to bend or change our business model/process to fit these updates. Revel introduce new feature but at the same time take away the old feature immediately, can you imagine how much trouble causing? For example we never had an option call “Credit Limit”, after the latest mandatory POS upgrade on iPad (this is another matter will mention after), we are forced to commit the new changes, we can no longer take "House Account" credit payment until we enable the "Credit Limit" option inside customer, but this is not the major problem, I am so shocking they don't provide a batch upload method, instead we are instructed to make this change inside each customer one by one, we have thousands of customers are on account. This is so ridiculous but why they can't just keep thing simple?

3. The Revel POS consist by two pieces, the frontend (iPad) and the backend (web management). Periodically they roll out major upgrade (notified) or small updates (silence) at the backend and then you must follow their schedule to download and re-install the new iPad App manually during off business hour to match your backend version, otherwise your iPad POS will not function properly

4. They have very slow development, usually the iOS App should be prepared and updated on device before the new iOS launch, but Revel work reversely, they will tell you DO NOT upgrade your iPad iOS Software whenever until they ready. They need to understand you cannot disable system update on iPad, until some point you will get the software update reminder popup crazy everyday on the iPad and you must choose "remind me/install later" to bypass but couple times my staffs by accidently hit the wrong button and fire up the software update, then the till will be out of service until we reach Revel support for fix. I cannot blame on my staffs in this case, Revel have to do something to avoid this to happen.

4. Support - their level 1 support is useless, even level 2 not really helpful, the most words I have heard are "Sorry" or "This is the system design, nothing we can do". I don’t need a sorry. I have a strong feeling their development teams make whatever changes they want without thinking the impacts would brought up to the customers.

5. The most funniest thing is Revel have a Voice of Customer team to hear your feedback, this is cool, they do reach out you to hear your problems or complaints but limited to listen only! They don't follow up anymore, I have one phone conservation and one email both sink into the deep sea, sigh*

Good luck!

I'd stay away from this system and this company. I'm a small business owner and I've spent more time trying to get Revel to fix their POS (point of sale) than I have running my own business. I will soon cut my losses and find an alternative solution. I promise, this company will drive you to extreme frustration. Finally, I recommend paying a little extra for a better Poiny of Sale system, you will find it's cheaper in the long run than trying to use Revel.

Overall Revel is a total letdown and will be replaced by year end with a better system, lots of things we were promised could be done require using their "Open API" which costs more per month than the entire POS system does for 5 stations. We were not told about the API pricing upfront (or that there was even a cost at all, it was pitched like it was included in the regular fee) just that we could use the API to do everything we told them we needed to do, my project manager informed me of the API pricing during our implementation, when I called out the sales rep for never mentioning the additional cost despite repeated conversations about how critical this was she told me "its not my job to tell you the pricing for the API since that's not my department"

It is also very difficult to impossible to find and load an order in the dashboard by customer. You have to load the customers orders report, find the customer in the list, click show orders, note the order number, then go to the order history report and then you can click through to the order, why isn't the order number under customers order a hyperlink to take me to the order?

They made a systems change to batch process updates to the POS instead of in realtime, we have a custom app that we use for check ins when a customer comes into the store and it adds customers to the revel system so we can link them to a sale and track close rate etc. They used to sync in real time from the dashboard to the stations, after a recent update it takes anywhere from 30-60 minutes for the customers to pull down from the revel dashboard. I have verified they show up on the dashboard instantly as they should, there is just a major delay in syncing back to the iPads now that was not there before the update.

Reporting is very weak in certain areas, you can't view profit by anything other than employee which is worthless if you don't have pay rates loaded which we don't since we aren't using that aspect of the system.

When we receive inventory in the store, we upload it into the revel dashboard via their excel template this works about 75% of the time, the rest of the time it just silently fails, you will never receive any notice that it failed, where it failed etc. So now before I do any uploads, I do an export of what we have immediately before so when it fails I can compare to the inventory after the partial upload to figure out where the import stopped so I can import the rest.

I could keep going but bottom line is if your needs are more than barebones or you are not a restaurant you should look elsewhere for a much better solution.

A Huge Mistake w/ Painful Ripple Effects. I want to convey concise specifics regarding where the decision to purchase the REVEL system went wrong without emotion but this process from start to finish coupled with the loss and major internal labor dollars, cuts deep!

Before signing we did our due diligence, as best we knew how. Our team read the pro and con reviews. We took particular note of one review which said get everything in writing prior to signing. Our attempt to do so was to compile an excel doc that listed specifics of everything we needed the system to do for our custom bakery. We received a “yes” we can on the majority of the listed items. Our team sent multiple emails and cataloged them all, from pre-purchase, sales rep dialogue, on-boarding, initial program management, daily questions to various on-boarding team members, help line conference calls, management team conference calls, to and the summary of where the REVEL system failed us miserably. If you would like this information, we would be more than happy to forward you our packet of information. We hired an intern for 6 weeks who worked in tandem with a permanent team member, solely for the purpose of manage the on-boarding and conversion process; with the intent of expediting our transition from our old POS system to new REVEL system.

Our internal plan was so effective that within 2 weeks of receiving the equipment, we were able to ascertain that the REVEL system would not align with our business model. Our internal conversion team learned the platform so well, that they were able to ascertain operational components of the software the help desk and our assigned project manager was not aware (use of modifiers and order category classifications). Our team hit the ground running the day after the contract was signed.

I wish I'd gotten another POS. Am actively looking for another, despite knowing how destructive this would be to implement.

Revel Systems POS is a very powerful tool that is well-supported, constantly undergoing updates and improvements (and that our salesman and installer have been very easy to work with!) I have generally found tech support to be responsive and they have usually always helped me resolve any issues.

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

When it works it's great. Waaayyyyy too much down-time and too much difficulty getting back up. Not very reliable.

My overall experience has not been positive since day one. There have been operational errors from the very beginning to the degree that using Revel has cost us money thru loss of customers who get frustrated with all the online ordering errors and just go elsewhere. Counter service has been slowed down due to having the system freeze up or force an unscheduled update in the middle of service. Customers get frustrated and the employees just make fun of your "provided services"

I stuck with Revel for the first two years of my business because of the desktop QuickBooks integration, which made things easier on my accountant and myself for bookkeeping. Now that they no longer host a Sync app, they are trying to force everyone onto QB online. The support agent I spoke to claimed that there was no way to export the data manually to desktop.

The system was clearly designed for restaurants and mangled into a retail space. There are all kinds of restaurant related options that are unrelated to a retail boutique, but have to be navigated around. Many issues with dashboard navigation, ability to adjust errors without complicating inventory accounting, etc. I've tried to call during peak business times to solve customer issues and been kept on hold for literally hours. When I tried to reach out to the sales person who sold me the system, all emails and calls went unreturned.

After 2 years of fighting with this system to make it work in my space, with terrible support and a high suprise costs, I'm giving up. The last reason I held out was the ease of passing through to my accountant. Now that that has been made even more difficult, I will be switching to another system this summer.

Horrible

THIS SYSTEM DOES NOT WORK