Likelihood to Recommend After using a previous integrator, I can safely say I would recommend Olo above the competition. Olo successfully consolidates all platforms for order ingestion thus simplifying the entire process of digital ordering. Trying to do it any other way would simply be foolish. The technology works and there is a great support structure behind the scenes to make sure that if there are any questions, feature requests, or advancements that they get added to the development queue.
Read full review For restaurants it's great, and that's the only scenario I'm really use to seeing it. However I do have to say that during Christmas time, our city has a craft bizarre where local artists are featured and sell their wares, and this Bizarre was using Toast POS. Therefore, I think it can really span across all avenues. It's great because of how it categorizes menus, and how you can run reports like a p-mix to see your top sellers, and bottom sellers, etc. The more I think of it, now, really any business that sells something and needs to track those sales, could use this POS. A tire store? Sure. A hat shop? Absolutely. The great thing about Toast is that it is just SO customizable! You can even make the buttons different colors, that's how customizable it is. Lastly, the ability to sell online has been a game-changer. I wish there was a little bit better formatting for online ordering, but really, you can add pictures, descriptions, modifiers, use discount codes, and accept gift cards all online. We didn't have to build out an online store, we just had to build out our menu buttons and we were all set.
Read full review Pros Olo makes the guest experience easy and understandable while placing their orders. They can easily customize their order, modifying each item to their liking using the guidelines we at our restaurant have given. If there are issues with our equipment, Olo is quick to respond and get us back online. Read full review The ability for guest to select a receipt type. Allowing to enter in different types of orders (current in-store orders, future orders, house account orders, and more). The convenience of touch screen use and strong calibration. Ability to swivel tablet from employee to guest. Read full review Cons hard to set up 3rd parties on Rails - providing access and adding pricing information bug in searching orders - have to first deselect all before selecting store need to add group ordering - but they said they are working on this store hours are too difficult to update. please make them editable all at once Read full review Though sales details are available in real time, the analytics take 2-3 days to post. So if you are looking for specific modifications you'll have to wait. Though you can edit the menus directly from the devices and move them around like you do on a smartphone, it doesn't give you a sorting option. If you're OCD like me, you have to alphabetize my hand. Read full review Likelihood to Renew It's quick, responsive, easy to navigate and has all the functions necessary to get the job done
Read full review There are many features I wish Toast had that it currently does not, but we are likely to renew this year because given Toast's recent increase in funding and expanding of their staff, we are hopeful some of these issues will finally be resolved in 2019. Plus, though I've never done it, I'd imagine that switching to another POS system would take a ton of time, money, and resources---things most businesses don't have a lot of. So we'll sit tight with Toast for now and see what they come up with this year in terms of fixing our biggest pain-points.
Read full review Usability Olo's usability is great. The only area that keeps them from being a 10 is menu management. Menu management is absolutely workable, but it could be better. The rest of the system works well and is very usable and user-friendly. To the extent that their menu management has opportunities, the Olo Expo product helps this out with the people that need it the most, and thus why they score a 9 overall. Without Olo Expo, I'd score it an 8.
Read full review Toast POS is a great basic POS tool, having some features I didn't think would be possible at this price point, such as:
processing CC payments in "offline mode" in case there is an internet outage kitchen display screens collecting payment from customers using a handheld right at their table pre-approving card payments to assure the customer has enough money to pay for their order, etc That being said, I still feel that Toast misses the mark on some things that I truly would consider 'common-sense' features, such as:
providing hardware that connects the Register Screen (Elo) to the Cash drawer so it doesn't fall off the table when flipped over for customer signature accepting physical and e-gift cards as payment on their own online ordering platform (ToastOO) a Rewards Program that allows for online enrollment, rather than holding up quick-serve lines to sign up a Promo code feature that allows you to add basic restrictions such as Limit 1 per customer, or date/time limitations increasing in-store operations efficiency by creating more straight-forward ways to manage restaurant/ToastOO hours, and Delivery/Takeout quote estimates Facing these issues after 3+ years has been a frustration. We hope Toast has some solutions in mind that they will be implementing in 2019.
Read full review Support Rating No product is ever perfect and support is there to help when that is the case. The vast majority of time the Olo support team is quick, transparent, and resolves the issues. However, I can't say that they are absolutely perfect (but few support teams are). The only thing keeping them from a 10 is the LVL1 support teams will often not read a ticket fully and see that the troubleshooting steps they are about to give have already taken place.
Read full review Implementation Rating not sure
Read full review Alternatives Considered Revel is my POS provider and they want to charge way to much for online integration so I have not tried it. What I have tried is each companies own apps on their tablets. I would rather have 3 or 4 different tablets that are good at what they do for their respective company then use your "all-in-one" solution that honestly is much worse.
Read full review Toast is so much easier to use than Breadcrumb. The display is so much easier to navigate. The card readers are more quality with Toast. Chownow was hard because it had its own printer, different than our kitchen printer, for to go orders, but now with Toast's all in one ordering we get the to go orders sent to the kitchen with the same ease as if they were getting fired from the main floor.
Read full review Return on Investment Time savings for employees has been a positive impact. Our takeout business has increased from less than 10% to over 30% in the last 2 years, we could not have been as successful with this increase without the help of Olo. Read full review I wish there are a way to permanently delete items from the database instead of just archiving I wish there was a way to remove old locations that are no longer in use for my company completely from view. The system overall is easy to navigate and make changes to. Read full review ScreenShots