Tripleseat Reviews

Pros

What is not to love? It has every feature and function that I need to keep me organized. We have over 200 weddings and events per year in a multi-million dollar waterfront restaurant, and Tripleseat is basically my right arm. I use it for everything from its calendar, creating BEOs and contracts for the clients, food and beverage cost management, etc. I also have demo'd similar products and have chosen to stay with Tripleseat because they have everything I need, and even things I didn't know I needed!

Cons

There really aren't any cons to list here - anytime I have needed something, I just talk to their customer service team and they explain where it is, or add it for me. For instance, I wanted better reporting on lead sources and where the business was coming from, and they added a custom report for me the next day!

Pros

Ease of use. I can easily train other employees quickly on how to book orders. I love the customization and ease of adding new menu items. The reporting is excellent for keeping track of sales and other marking tools.

Cons

I wish that it had the ability to auto populate a packing slip for the kitchen. I.e. when fajitas are ordered for 10, it would populate on the kitchen sheet the exact amount of food by oz or quarts the kitchen would need to prepare.

Alternatives Considered

Caterease

Reasons for Switching to Tripleseat

When we met with the sales representative, we felt like it was the perfect fit for our small company. It had everything we needed to book, keep track of sales and scheduling for in the restaurant as well as our off site catering, and the tools to easily communicate easily with customers.

Pros

Our clients love how professional Gather looks. We get a lot of compliments, from clients, on how easy it is to use.

Cons

Unfortunately there are just so many issues... We're an off site catering company and it appears that this product is more of an "in-house" program for on site/private dining... They knew this when they sold us the program and should have realized they were not for us...

Most important was the fact that our invoices weren't adding up correctly; had we not manually added them up we would be out of thousands of dollars. There is no where for our clients to confirm their contact info (phone, address), not efficient when booking a high volume of events. The zip codes for our clients, on the BEOs, default to our zip code; so we have to go in and manually write the client's zip code on every BEO so that our delivery drivers don't get lost.... We've spoken to them several times and yet no one can seem to correct a zip code. There is no way to enlarge the font, when doing several events it's hard for kitchen staff to see the menus.

The support team is very polite but can't ever really answer a question. They respond with "we'll mention this at our next meeting"...

Pros

As an event team of one, I find Tripleseat to be comprehensive and easy to use. Tripleseat is absolutely critical to my success and efficiency as an event manager. The lead, event, and calendar features are all functions I use countless times a day. I love the ability to import email response templates and BEO templates. Customer service is super friendly and fast.

Cons

Tripleseat has some weird quirks that I feel like should be easy to fix when suggested. There is a lag time when entering a new client who you'd like to add to an account which really slows down my work flow to have to wait for. You can only have one client on a lead, so if you are communicating with a couple or both parents of the groom, you can only communicate with one email address. It is hard for clients to tell who is on the thread. I would say the email function is one of the weakest. There have been other feature upgrades that seem like common sense/basic requests to me that Tripleseat has not been able to accomodate.

Pros

Use of templates and ease of data transferring within system, reports, etc.
Customer service is on point!
'live' edits

Cons

Not being able to change titles of some items.
Being more in line for full service and not catering how we do.
Not being able to save locations for deliveries with notes.
Having to export items to excel to get reports
Not having a 'product mix' report of menu items

Pros

I love using Gather for the ease of everything from creating contacts to confirming final guest counts.

Cons

My only complaint about Gather is the inevitable few and far between glitches with occasional product updates. The issues are always resolved quickly, and the customer service is top-notch!

Pros

I love the ease of use and the time it has saved me! More time, more events, more money!

Cons

There is not one thing I don't like...honestly!

Alternatives Considered

Caterease

Reasons for Switching to Tripleseat

The functionality of the software for our everyday event planning needs. Everything we did for an event (contracts, budget planning, internal and external communication, etc.) was in one place!

Pros

The Event Portal is so easy use and customize. Clients are always impressed by the professional, easy to read format and the Gather support team is always on their A game!

Cons

I work mainly with the desktop version so if I had to say there was a con, it’d be with the limitations of the mobile app.

Alternatives Considered

Caterease

Reasons for Switching to Tripleseat

Ease of use and ability to customize based on our brand.

Pros

The calendar, daily updates, and ability to customize anything is amazing.

Cons

It's a lot of work to get all your documents set up just the way you want them. But once you figure it out it goes quickly. The support team is fast and can solve any problem. Sometimes they'll do the work for you.

Wish it handled vendors better and had a way to schedule musical acts within an event. You can make it work, but it's clunky.

Alternatives Considered

ScheduFlow

Reasons for Switching to Tripleseat

The support staff and the ability to customize every little detail.

Pros

This software is super user-friendly and is quick and easy for booking events from beginning to finish in one sitting.

Cons

When doing updates it does tend to time out and freeze but Gather reps always send out emails explaining what is going on which is always a great communicator!

Pros

Our team loves how each client has his/her own customer portal. It is fairly easy to change any details at any time. It is also imperative for us to be able to send an approval request to each client at the time of solidifying details for an event. Really helps us to ensure our team can execute the event flawlessly.

Cons

We wish that Gather was able to track any changes made by one of our team members so that when a change occurs, we can know exactly who made it and why... Or that there was specific place for a team member to track changes in the portal. Also, we wish that there was a way to approve each specific section instead of just an over all proposal. Our clients are dealing with TONS of wedding details (not always through us) and they have a lot on their minds.

Alternatives Considered

Total Party Planner

Reasons for Switching to Tripleseat

See above.

Pros

Gather has helped streamline our business by providing a fast and easy way to communicate with our clients in a clean professional format. We use the "Copy" feature very frequently as we have many repeat clients. The live update feature while we are on the phone with clients is very helpful and many clients comment how nice that is.

Cons

We wish we could customize the font size on the Chef BEO. We use the Chef BEO as orders in our kitchen and it would be beneficial for us to be able to make certain items stand out more.
We find ourselves directing many clients to the "Print Summary" hyperlink on the Summary of Charges page. If there was a way for this button to stand out as the full breakdown/itemized invoice that would be very helpful.

Pros

I love that the software is live so I can make changes on line in front of the customer, while on the phone with them and they can sit right away in front of their own screen.

Cons

Sometimes the issues with their servers slowing down can be bothersome, especially during the working hours.

Alternatives Considered

Caterease

Reasons for Choosing Tripleseat

Old software

Reasons for Switching to Tripleseat

Ease of use, clean looking portals.

Pros

Setting up and working with events and groups is simple and intuitive. Tripleseat ahs many options, so everything can be done within the software.

Cons

Tripleseat acquired Gather, our previous event software, and the price went up substantially. Tripleseat is competitive with other software's pricing, but Gather was a bargain.

Pros

Gather is so easy to learn and use for both hospitality staff and event hosts. It is the best tool we have for company wide event communication. Every event detail is tracked and available for your full team to execute a flawless event.

Cons

I have no complaints about the software at all. The updates are smooth, customer service is fast, reports are easy. The credit card processing also made staying credit card compliant a piece of cake.

...I do find the team communication feature to be very confusing or unnecessary.
I would like for it to integrate with Open Tables in the future.

Pros

Tripleseat is very user friendly and intuitive. It's easy to teach yourself and customize settings to what you need. I run the events for 3 restaurants and can customize what I need for each restaurant

Cons

There are glitches that when I've brought them up to customer support have been brushed off. For example: the emails from tripleseat tend to get blocked by company's firewalls or go to trash. It happens very often with my finance clients. When I've brought this up, customer support has just said to tell the client to check their junk folder but I can't really keep telling the Directors of Private Dining for major banking companies the problem is on their end so I end up not using tripleseat when booking my finance clients which is most of our revenue.

Pros

It is easily accessible and great if we need to work from home. Leads are captured for us to respond and sorted accordingly. The calendar for event planning is critical for us to see and use to rent our event spaces.

Cons

I would love if there was an app for it on the phone instead of having to go on a site. When multiple members are booking potential leads, If there was a way to block spaces better besides using the hold mark on the calendar as that does not guarantee a proper blockage sometimes (for example if it can note the space is currently being blocked as multiple users are trying to block the space at the same time that would be great) Also putting potential events on our calendar does require multiple steps with a lot of info -if this could be more compact, that would save time in booking during high demand.

Pros

The overall ability to communicate clearly to Clients as well as staff, and having the software compatible with the newest tech (I get notifications on my phone and watch). Proposals to clients look professional and are easy for just about anyone to utilize. Putting proposals together now take minutes instead of hours.

Cons

I honestly have nothing negative to say about any aspect of Gather.

Pros

We appreciate how easy it is to send contacts out with Gather. It is extremely easy to look up customers and past events. It is a great tool for prospecting and re-booking events.

Cons

The only thing that we don't enjoy is when software programming slows down at times when the company is doing updates. This does not happen often and the flip side of it is Gather is good at staying current with market trends and keeping us updated.

Pros

It really helps me and my team stay organized and better work together. Since transitioning to Tripleseat, all members of the team can work on each event instead of us each working in our own bubble. Events are more thorough, cohesive and guests get better attention. The tasks in the system are the best "task management" tool I've come across.

Cons

It sometimes feels that the help desk doesn't listen to you when you're trying to voice a complaint/error. They're quick to blame you or your other software before they even try to understand the issue and almost refuse to get on the phone with you.

Pros

I like the aesthetic of the software and that the Gather team seems to always be working on ways to improve the product.

Cons

I wish that the Task feature functioned more like an alert where some kind of reminder for deadlines would pop up, not only on the page for that particular event, but on the home page and calendar page. If the task feature were a bit more developed then I would be able to stop using Pipedrive altogether. It would also be AWESOME if Gather were integrated with OpenTable or another reservations software system.

I also wish there were more color coding options for different categories of events and phases they're in, such as a color for offsite events, or a color for an event that is confirmed but maybe still has a few details to finalize.

It would also be fantastic if clients could complete their credit card authorization form directly on the Gather Proposal Page so that they do not have to email credit card information or relay it over the phone.

Pros

This software is SUPER user friendly. I have used it my past couple positions because of how easy it is for not only my position, but anyone else who needs to look into any of the event details.

I also like the unlimited viewer side of things. Communication is key and if everyone can have access to all details of the event, it makes it much easier.

All of my clients find it easy to use as they can view all of their details on their BEO, and sign off on everything electronically.

Being able to jump on the app is very helpful. If I am not at my desk or in the office, I am able to pull up any details anywhere.

Cons

I don't like that you are not able to edit a few forms that are already in Gather. We work with it, but it causes a bit more work on my end.

Pros

Ease of use. Customer satisfaction. I like that I can use on my phone or tablet. It's a great tool and you can bring it anywhere - client meetings, etc.

Cons

Sometimes there is a glitch in the system or running slow

Pros

I love having the Gather app on my phone. I can check my calendar, create proposals and respond to messages on the go! Our restaurant owner can also see what events are coming up through the app.

Cons

The app is a work in progress, but they have made great strides with a lot of new editing features. One feature I would like to see is the ability to edit an event's menu & beverages in the app.

Pros

The best feature in Tripleseat is the ability to make a change once, to multiple documents. This saves so much time and energy! I love the ability to completely customize the program itself, too. Reporting has never been easier. Simply select what you want to see, then generate. Their helpdesk staff are incredible as well--very speedy and informative. Overall, could not do my job without this software system!

Cons

The only downside is not being able to print calendars. I do understand the reason though--Tripleseat is meant to be current and up-to-date at all times. Once you print the calendar it is no longer accurate, essentially. However, there is still a need for printed calendars in my job.