Overview
In this review of Upserve, we will provide a detailed overview of the company's credit card processing and restaurant management services. We will cover the range of features they offer, including point-of-sale (POS) systems, mobile payment solutions, and e-commerce capabilities tailored for the restaurant industry. The review will identify the types of businesses that might benefit from these services. Additionally, we will examine client and customer reviews to highlight common trends and potential concerns. The article will also address the company's pricing structure, contract terms, and specific features provided. By the end of this review, you will understand whether Upserve meets your restaurant's payment processing and management needs.
About Upserve
Upserve is a merchant account, point-of-sale, and marketing services provider for U.S. restaurants. The company was launched in 2009 and rebranded itself as Upserve in March 2016. It also acquired Breadcrumb POS in May 2016 and the restaurant inventory management software SimpleOrder in 2018. In April 2019, Upserve announced the appointment of Kendra Tucker as its Chief Revenue Officer. Tucker had previously been employed as the Director of Go-to-Market at Vista Consulting Group, a subsidiary of Vista Equity Partners, which holds a managing stake in Upserve.
In 2020, Lightspeed purchased Upserve, though it continues to operate the company under its own brand.
Upserve Products and Services
Payment Processing
Upserve provides payment processing for all debit and credit cards specifically for restaurants. Their offerings include EMV card readers, POS systems, restaurant management tools, gift and loyalty programs, and mobile processing. To access Upserve's comprehensive data analytics features, merchants are now required to use its payment processing service.
Kris
Don’t go with Upserve if you value your time, money, or mental state. Absolutely atrocious company. Read their BBB reviews for more insight.
Nikki
I have had two restaurants with Upserve and Lightspeed, and regretted the decision 6 months into our contract. The customer service and support is really horrible, they expect you to troubleshoot printer outages caused by the backend of the software thru “printer support articles” in the middle of high volume dinner service. They make an incredible amount of revenue off of our business (both were doing $5M a year) and did nothing to support our business the length of the contract. We are finally finishing our contracts out, and I am grateful I negotiated 36 months instead of the 60 month contract they were trying to push our management into doing. If this helps any restaurant owner out there, you are welcome. There are some great POS companies out there, with real support, and a real commitment to small businesses.
Cory Royer
We have been a good customer with Upserve and simply wanted to discuss a new contract. Customer Service is nearly zero when you need to talk with someone from the contract department or even our own representative. Since early July 2022 — Multiple calls and emails with promises from Upserve of a return call, yet no. No response from Upserve. On my 5th attempted phone call on July 29th, the person who answered the phone shared with me that my account representative did not want to take my call, there was no one else to talk to and instead wanted to return my call in about a week. I explained how I had been lead down that trail of belief before and that if I wasn’t able to talk with someone today, we would be completely stopping payments with Upserve and moving to another vendor. The representative put me on hold a second time only to come back and share that my account representative still would not come to the phone. We have stopped payments and have moved on. The strategy apparently is to ignore their customers.
Marita Jager
We signed up with Upserve January 1st, 2021 – a brand new restaurant. I did so much research because I wanted a system that was really productive and efficent with great customer service.
We have been going through an impossible situation. My biggest problem is the lack of customer service. I feel like I’m talking to a black hole. Many times there is an hour wait to talk to someone – luckily they will call you if you opt for that once someone is available so you don’t have to wait on the phone. But of course most things are urgent when it comes to the POS.
Our POS system completely stopped working from May 24th to June 6th. We were finally able to run credit cards after two days of writing the credit card numbers down by hand so we could input them once the system was back up. There are NO local reps to help you. While they have a 24 hour phone line, their technicians are not working 24 hours, so only when we are open are they able to help us – from about 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., but for some reason the phone help person did not relay that to me, so I came in three days in a row at 7 a.m. to try to work through our problems while we were not open, yet the phone help line attendants did not bother to tell me that until the fourth day.
For 13 days all the credit card we ran didn’t go into the system – well some did some didn’t – so I had to take pictures of every credit card receipt – 1000s, and then send them by e-mail to upserve. My real complaint is that no one has contacted me letting me know they did receive the credit card receipts, even though I e-mailed and called and asked if they recieved them all, so that I could have some piece of mind. One day only $4 were recorded in their system on a day we rang over $6000. I tallied up all the credit cards and then ran a report of all the reciept that went through and those that didn’t and determined that upserved owed us over $32,000. Yet no one would acknowledge the amount. I think that’s the worst part – not knowing what’s going on.
Now a month later upserve is charging the customers for their reciepts that didn’t go through so we are gettig really angry phone calls putting a bad taste in our customers mouths after we worked so hard to set up a new business and get a great reputation. Our reveiws for our restarant are fantastic – but I’m very scared about what’s going to happen now with 1000s of customers getting what they believe to be frodulent charges from our restaurant.
Communication is key – and their is none from this company. I was on the phone for hour after hour and finally asked the service phone person if he could work on it without me on the phone and call me back when he had some news. He said yes. He never called me back. Several days of this with no one calling me back I finally got an e-mail from someone saying they are the manager and would be handling my case – but she never called me even after I requested that she do several times. Then she wrote that not only do they not make outgoing phone calles – as soon I you hang up with them, the phone call ends and they take the next income call. It was a little baffeling that the phone service person simply said ok that he would work on my case and call me back, when he knew once I hung up he would have to take the next incoming call.
I’ve asked to be let out of my contract – that’s all I want – and the only response I got from the manger via e-mail was that it would cost us $27,000 . It’s just not acceptable.