HotSchedules vs. TouchBistro

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
HotSchedules
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
HotSchedules is a cloud-based scheduling, labor and communication management software solution serving the restaurant and hospitality industry. According to the vendor, key benefits include: Build & Communicate Schedules The scheduling and labor management software reduces the time it takes managers to create and communicate schedules. All scheduling and employee information is stored in one central location, so managers have access to time-off requests,…
$2
per month per employee
TouchBistro
Score 6.0 out of 10
N/A
TouchBistro is a complete mobile POS solution on the iPad for the restaurant industry. It allows users to manage reservations, view the menu, take orders and review sales reports with a few simple touches. Instead of servers repeatedly moving between customers and terminals for order management, servers can remain with customers and instantly submit orders to the kitchen and bar. Servers no longer need to write down an order and then enter it into a distant terminal. TouchBistro's single entry…
$25
per month
Pricing
HotSchedulesTouchBistro
Editions & Modules
Essentials
$2
per month per employee
Plus
$4
per month per employee
Quote-Based
Quote-based pricing
Gift Cards
$25
per month
Online Ordering
$50
per month
POS License
$69
per month
Reservations
$229
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
HotSchedulesTouchBistro
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
HotSchedulesTouchBistro
Best Alternatives
HotSchedulesTouchBistro
Small Businesses
7shifts
7shifts
Score 9.9 out of 10
Square POS
Square POS
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Jolt
Jolt
Score 9.7 out of 10
Shopify
Shopify
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises

No answers on this topic

No answers on this topic

All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
HotSchedulesTouchBistro
Likelihood to Recommend
1.0
(0 ratings)
8.1
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.9
(0 ratings)
8.2
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.9
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
HotSchedulesTouchBistro
Likelihood to Recommend
HotSchedules can be implemented in any organization that has to staff a store with varying hours. I have recommended this to my colleague who has 8 employees, yet he has seen great results with the shift swaps and availability tracking/time off requests. I do wish we could see some more attention to general staffing and training VS. the heavy emphasis on restaurant businesses. It feels HotSchedules has grown into many more areas and should work away from marketing so directly to restaurant businesses. Some training programs for other business would be a welcome sight.
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For a small business like ours, it works very well, is very user friendly, but the cost to add more tablets so that we can keep one at the bar, one on the interior dining area and one on the outside dining area is difficult as they have to be iPads, and there is an additional cost to add another tablet for use on the floor
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Pros
  • All the information needed for your employees can all be found in one place. From the availability of an employee to their pay rate to their phone number. It's all just a click away. Before HotSchedules all of this information was kept in different places and the managers would need to open several documents and contact lists to find what they were looking for about a single employee.
  • Control over how indepth you use the product. The possibilities of this service are seemingly endless. However if you are solely looking for a specific feature HotSchedules offers you have the ability to soley use that feature. HotSchedules can simply schedule, or it can automatically schedule, or you can assign a specific job to a specific person on a specific day. For us, we have employees who are doing a specific job/task one week and then they are needed for a different job/task the next week. HotSchedules allowed us to narrow down our options starting with department, moving to location, moving down to the job they would be preforming for that scheduled day.
  • The ease of changing/releasing shifts. If an employee wants more hours they can go in and select shifts that are up for grabs or request to work on a specific day at a specific time. The opposite is also true. If an employee is worried they will have too many hours that week, they can release their shift and put it up for grabs by a different employee. And of course, all of this is fairly customizable to what you want your employees to have the ability to do, with or without your intervention and approval. In our case, if a shift lead releases a shift we only want other shift leads to be able to pick up the shift. HotSchedules allows us to do just that.
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  • Very fast transaction times; I do not need to wait for the credit slip printer to respond, it is almost instantaneous.
  • I can add, delete, or modify menu items on the fly and in real time in literally a handful of seconds.
  • TouchBistro provides an intuitive and easy way to check my tasting room’s metrics in real time from anywhere on the globe.
  • My employees are able to access a customized menu of item modifiers and discounts very quickly and easily.
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Cons
  • I find that the system of assigning jobs and rates is a little tedious, but understand the need for it.
  • I'm not familiar enough with the copy and setting the next week's schedule, but it's not necessarily hard to use.
  • The whole assigning welcome letter and with log in and password is difficult with the Spanish speakers even though you have a Spanish version.
  • Many of our employees do not have email or smart phones, so I find that HotSchedules is not as useful to them or us.
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  • Online ordering can not be added on to once the customer arrives, can’t edit or change anything once placed
  • Slow speed to place next order, and syncing with debit machines
  • Frustrating that screen needs to be closed until payment goes through, hard in a very busy restaurant
  • New updates always cause glitches in the system. The last update I now have drinks printing to my kitchen that never did before.
  • Admin and servers not being able to do printouts
  • Discounts not displaying on day printouts
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Likelihood to Renew
Ease of use, efficiently creating and posting staff schedules.
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No answers on this topic
Usability
6 Years of Experience provides me the insight on the upgrades and changes that HotSchedules has done to improve the experience of its users. There are so many features that we still have not started or used to the fullest, but we believe that we are currently getting a strong value out of the money that is paid for this product.
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It's an incredibly easy system to navigate both from a management perspective as well as a service member perspective.Training, programming items and inventory, day to day sales, processing payments, gathering reports and data, gift card sales and processing (with the exception of online for us) is easy and seamless.
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Support Rating
Always cheerful, informative, and educated staff. Each person seems to want to find a way to help us with any issues or questions we have. I love that all the staff is friendly and in a good mood when you call, I have never had a rep be unhelpful or short tempered, or ever less than accommodating to our needs!
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First of all, I hardly ever need support for Touch Bistro, that’s how well it works. In the very instances over the years where I did need to call, customer support was easily accessible and fast and accurate with their responses
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Alternatives Considered
HotSchedules was the first to tie into a POS to control clocking in and out for employees compared to a canned product from major POS providers. HotSchedules is more widely used by hourly employees in the industry, so there is less of a training curve.
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Toast overall was a very impressive system. However being new to Canada I was hesitant to sign. Clover worked well with payment processing but was not a great system for sales and service. Square would repeatedly crash and miss payments, their customer service was terrible and took too much effort to have any corrective assistance. We went with TouchBistro because in all the restaurants I have worked in this has been a consistent system and was able to integrate with Moneris payments.
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Return on Investment
  • Saving time on scheduling means our managers can focus more on guest experience, managing the floor and other areas that contribute to the success of our business.
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  • The consistency of ordering with Touch Bistro has aged me money! From the customer to the person who takes the order to the person who makes the order and then back to the customer we have less room for error with Touch Bistro.
  • It can be slow during large volume times, especially if a lot of my customers are laying with credit cards or gift cards.
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ScreenShots

HotSchedules Screenshots

Screenshot of Time-Off, Availability, Employee Hours, Sales Volume are all available in the scheduler.Screenshot of Employees are able to swap and pick-up shifts from the HotSchedules Mobile App. All shift changes or requests require a manager's approval.Screenshot of Managers and employees can communicate with each other from the mobile and web apps - from anywhere and at anytime.Screenshot of Employees can submit a time-off, request - paid, or unpaid - and can request to work or request off right from the mobile app.Screenshot of Managers can view sales and labor data from their phone.