POS Search - Delivery, ETAs, & Loyalty

We are 4 locations QSR pizza looking for our first POS ever. Yes, ever. After a couple months of chatting with over 12 POS providers, we are down to 4 solutions in the final eval. They all check the boxes on the key fundamentals.. caller ID, pizza ordering, inventory, remote access, coupons, time cards, basic reporting, online ordering, etc. However the following have been hard to get a good feeling in the following for which we think are crucial. Would also love to hear if some of you think that some of the criteria is moot.. like using ETA POS algorithms are great, but it shouldn't be that big of deal..

1.)Delivery Management: The fact of the matter is we have drivers spending too much time fidgeting around with who is going where when things get busy. We also can use their downtime doing side jobs in the store.

• Ability to aide our business in identifying delivery assignments (who goes where)
• Ability to aide delivery drivers on multi location routes (map routes)
• Ability to incentivize production/efficiency in their jobs (light a fire under them on doing a decent job)

2.)Ordering ETAs: Many of our stores have been in place for 30+ years (difficult to redesign) and our demand can fluctuate tremendously in peak season/days.. sometimes up to 1.75 hours

• Ability to manually override ETAs from POS should s#$@ happen
• Ability to consider current order volume, distance to delivery if delivered or pickup, etc.
• Ability to make it obvious for a 16 year old to find an ETA and mention to customer

3.)Customer Loyalty & Marketing: We aren't looking for the world in functionality, just a strong foundation on the basics

• Ability to have full circle customer experience whether in store or ordering online. i.e. Access their points or account by phone, in person, online.
• Ability to segment lists with basic criteria.. i.e. last order was great than 6 months ago, or have ordered >5 times before.
• Somewhat easy ability to mass email lists.. whether it's easy export, or hopefully easy basic email within remote admin interface

4.)Customer Profile Access: Saving time on phone is big reason. TouchBistro was so brutal at this we couldnt even continue the initial chat.

• Ability to reference their profile quickly. i.e. by phone number or name
• Big plus for repeating a previous order as we have some fiercely loyal customers.

Thanks a ton for any input at any length!

 

I did a demo with speedline yesterday, all the issues you mentioned were gone over in great detail

 

I sent you a private message covering all of these features.

 

I honestly don't know how you do delivery without a POS system I can't even imagine. Your life is going to get so much easier no matter what system you get!

If you list the companies you have it narrowed down to, I'm sure you will get plenty of testimonials for each.

 

Here is who we looked at thus far

Square - No delivery

Intouch - No delivery

Shopkeep - No delivery

TouchBistro - no delivery

Lightspeed - no delivery

Cake - No split topping = no dice

Upserve/Breadcrumb - somewhat limited delivery management

Toast - somewhat limited delivery management

Revel - Advanced Delivery management

InTouch - Advanced Delivery management

Speed Line - Advanced Delivery Management

Aloha - Advanced Delivery Management

 

I am with ReventioN Point of Sale. We cover literally all of these features. Call me and we can talk more. We didn’t earn the name as the number one pizza pos for nothing. (281) 598-8458 or email me at gzelt@revention.com.

 

From the list you provided I would only keep SpeedLine as a considerable option.
I would also add:

• Prism Microworks
• FoodTec
• Point of Success
• Revention

* Revel could also make the list of considerable options if you're interested in Tablet POS.

 

Speedline is hands down your answer

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I was POS shopping about a year ago so I researched most of those companies so here’s my 2 cents:
Square, shopkeep, TouchBistro, ligjtspeed are not sufficient for pizza delivery.

Toast flaked on our scheduled demo. If you can’t call me back to make a sale, are you really going to call me back when the system crashes and I need you? Also, you’re locked into 1 card processor so good luck trying to negotiate a good rate.

I liked revel, but not a single person I talked to had any real life restaurant experience so that turned me off. I also didn’t like that they pretty much make you lease the equipment even though it’s mostly just iPads and standard printers. (They do let you buy your own equipment but they charge almost the same price for just the software so it’s not worth it). It gets pricey too if you want all the features. You’re basically trading the high up front costs of the big names systems for a high monthly payment that will be there forever.

If you can afford it, Speedline is the way to go it’s top of the line. I used it for years at the shop I worked at before I opened my own. It was my first choice, it was just out of my price range. I would say it’s probably the most popular in the forum. I’m current sure users will chime in.

I’m not familiar with the other ones, but if you’re on a budget I would recommend Point of Success. It will do everything you need it to do, just very basic no bells and whistles to go with it. We ran it on old windows computers our first 4 years in business and it worked just fine. I ended up going with Thrive by granbury last year. I’m very happy with it so far, it does everything. I will say that it’s not as user friendly as some of the other more expensive systems, but they’re making improvements in that regard all the time. It helps to be tech savvy. If you’re not, it will probably give you headaches.

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.

 

I have used Revention Point of Sale for about 4 years now. The only issues I have ever had with them was with a billing error, but they ended up ultimately going above and beyond to fix it. Lots of indepth reporting options, does all the things you are looking for, and then some. If it's something you're interested in I'd be more than happy to let you dial in to my station, and show you the software from another business owners perspective.

 

Thanks a ton Mondo! Your feedback is a hugggge help. I agree with the story on Revel. A good friend of mine rip and replaces POS systems in the SF bay area he says of all the pos systems they pull out "Brand new Revel systems" is the most common. They seem to have deep functionality, but standard ordering workflow seems to be rather rigid and cant by melded into what a restaurants changing needs are.

I am suprised no one has commented on Intouch. Pizza My Heart, Roundtable & Mountain Mikes (larger california chains) supposedly use them so I'd imagine they are tested in terms of volume. It's hard to pass on them considering the pricepoint and functionality. Price is about 30% cheaper than Speedline and they have pretty cool add ons should you desire to grow that direction.. driver mobile app that can recognize when the driver is within 50 feet from the target delivery address, integration to digital menu boards, etc. I can't for the life of me find any non marketing content on them. Their sales guy is so sketchy it's the only real big red flag I have found.

 

Prism/Microworks. After 19 years with them I would not even shop around if I were starting over from scratch, I would just call them up and place the order. They are that good.

 

Does your Thrive system and/or the Speedline system integrate with all the 3rd party delivery sites? UberEats, Door Dash, ChowNow, Grubhub, etc? No way in hell I'm doing another place having to manually enter all those orders again!

 

I don't use third party but Speedline integrates with them all via something called Chowly if I remember correctly

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With ReventioN we do integrate with some 3rd party delivery services but, why would you want to lose a percentage of your sales? That is either going to cut into your profit margins or raise your prices to your customers. HungerRush is a customized online ordering platform that is direct through the point of sale at a flat monthly rate no matter how many orders go through online. On top of that it is the 3rd largest online ordering platform in the nation. It is fully customized from your logo's, color scheme, pictures, layout, suggestive selling, etc. It is built off of your domain and you have full access to the Google analytics. The system can also know your busy times and push your delivery eta online to appropriate estimated time as well as your customer can push the order to the time that they would like to pick it up or delivered. So you would not have to manually put in orders or have additional equipment just for online ordering.

 

I believe it does, but I have no idea the cost.

 

No POS is perfect but I will second Speedline as some of my pizza clients love it and have almost nothing bad to say about it