Revel POS Reviews: What Enterprise Restaurant Executives Reveal
Revel POS is a cloud-based, but iPad-only, solution to the payment processing, operations management, and business development trifecta.
Far beyond the basics, Revel's software suite even extends into social media management for restaurant chains. Through an open integration option, it also pairs well with most accounting, CRM, eCommerce, and order management solutions.
Some others, especially small operations or growing restaurants, will face an incline as they think about meeting its high price tag, not-so-simple training demands, and the need for a tightly wound contract.
Key Takeaway: Revel POS commands a 98% satisfaction rating among most of the global enterprises it supports. But, small operations will struggle with its cost, training, hardware, and contract demands.
Restaurant Customer Reviews for Revel POS
Revel POS is used by thousands and thousands of vendors worldwide. It comes with intriguing features for the food-oriented audience like menu management, inventory control, and even staff optimization.
Beyond this, Revel POS extends its capability to customer service which supports businesses in every sector, but most particularly restaurants who want to use digital kitchen displays or offer unique customer service and self-service options. This extends its reach when, at first glance, the platform seems unnecessarily committed to iPads as the sole hardware option.
Still, all these features come together to reflect positivity and praise when applied to the restaurant environment due to deep reporting and analytics. Beyond its zest for data intelligence for restaurants, a good number of reviews point out‒once more‒lengthy contracts which, in turn, help business secure lower pricing for access to these business-enabling benefits.
Despite a slight block to Android or Microsoft-centric companies, the Revel POS experience for restaurants is feature-rich and flavorful. In fact, Revel POS sports a 93 percent rate of satisfaction, according to multiple sources.
Where Revel Excels in the Enterprise POS Category
This is probably due to its ability to play nice with other restaurant systems through a growing library of app integrations. On top of that, the systems support those multi-location restaurants in search of alternative to brands like Toast, Square, and high-end pricing found in Lightspeed POS reviews.
While it obviously won't serve mid- to large-scale restaurants who want less costly hardware upfront, it's critical to mention that Revel POS uses an open API for integration. This means the system will intelligently and carefully collaborate with, for example, custom-menu tools and POS software partners.
However, low-volume and low-visit restaurants may experience a pretty steep cost-and-learning curve if or when they take the leap into its closed hardware with open software environment.
That's why every business‒large or small‒should consider how much they can "chew" before ordering the base requirements of the Revel POS suite. In this case, that would mean multiple iPads for each point of service or transaction touchstone.
Extending Value in Revel POS Restaurants: Open Integration
While picky on the iPad-point, Revel POS offers an open API for restaurants ready to scale operations with custom software solutions.
These might be marketing tools for loyalty programs, mobile payment options, or even more advanced online ordering platforms for those in the know. (That market alone is anticipated to grow more than 10 percent before experts take another look at its rampant, highly convenient, COVID-fueled rise. Explore the bi-directional benefits of a fresh online ordering integration.)
While Revel POS already brings a healthy range of features, this added value proposition for restaurant brands will keep businesses from falling into the feared category of customer turnover. Instead, being a cloud-native solution, the business management possible with Revel is much less limited than we've seen in other comparisons.
For instance, when parsing through Clover, Aloha, and Heartland user reviews, a pattern soon emerges: the need for custom solutions to iron out "missing ingredients" in each. Revel POS seems to solve this by giving business owners more control over how they handle payments, use business intelligence, and accommodate brand-to-brand needs.
Freeing Data for Enterprise Executives with Revel POS
With an open API for custom integration, most leadership will be put at ease: they can continue using their chosen CRM platform, but they can also scale through mobile ordering technologies, and so on.
For executives, this means more visibility, transparency, and continuity when the POS allows business to run as needed for growth. But, in this case, there's a bit more on the menu: The Revel Data Connector.
This tool allows businesses of many kinds, but especially data-first restaurants to access and analyze their POS data with few limitations on exporting, integrating, or manipulating the precious information for these data sets and much more:
- Customer Retention Rates
- Customer Acquisition
- Customer Lifetime Value
- Customer Survey Results
- Customer Order Cycle Times
In essence, the connector supports big data in restaurants. In serving as one of the foundations for other kinds of analysis, beyond business-specific intelligence, the tool can also serve as a means to even more customized reporting.
For instance, analyzing sales numbers, customer satisfaction, and food data analytics can lead to revelatory new insights for customers. When paired with more advanced online ordering tools, it can even provide a feed for custom dashboards and diagnostic reports. If you want to learn more about why this matters, take a look at our guide to restaurant data intelligence.
Frequently Asked Questions about Revel POS in Restaurants
Learn from real user reviews, and get the answers to the most common questions from restaurants using Revel. See what their customers, including enterprise restaurant executives, really had to say.
Why is Revel POS good for large restaurants?
For restaurants and hospitality, Revel POS brings deep reporting through its Data Connector alongside tools for staff management‒hopefully, cutting those operating expenses with better labor forecasting.
The limits of Revel POS appear plain: you must use an iPad to run this cloud-native and buttery application across your locations. That often means a substantial upfront investment, if you can weather it for the sake of corporate insight.
What are the cons of working for restaurants with Revel POS?
Revel POS is not shy about being an iPad-only product fully dependent on the Apple development environment. Beyond that, you should fully expect to be drawn to the longest contract imaginable, if only to secure a more reasonable rate for Revel's enterprise suite.
Still, the abundance of positive reviews overwhelms its seemingly locked-in nature‒both for its hardware and contract requirements. Any penalties for cancellation weren't dependably mentioned.
Should I choose Revel POS for payments, operations, and managements?
You could, and that wouldn't be a bad idea from a top-level perspective that only considers what you stand to gain‒and not what it will initially cost to get started. Most small businesses and fledgling restaurants will struggle with some of Revel's not-slight tech and contract needs.
Whatever you decide is the best POS systems will depend on where you are in the restaurant or business growth cycle. As a result, we can't say if Revel is right for you. As with any restaurant tech solution or contract agreement, test all alternatives before arriving at the ideal for your brand.