A Solid Piece of Software - Offering Custom Branding and Integrations

I've observed firsthand people coming into our facility and getting up-to-the-minute accurate information to help them find their way, be informed about upcoming events, and be entertained and inspired. REACH's support team is great and they are super friendly... Willing to work through anything with you! It's been a pleasure doing business with them and we are excited to keep expanding our network of displays in new and exciting ways in the future.

Pros

I love that they work with you to design a custom template that matches your organizations brand. Then, they offer integrations (we use the eSpace integration for building schedule) and modules (weather, social media, video, graphics) that pull in data from multiple sources onto one screen seamlessly. I've seen other digital signage solutions that offer either split screen solutions or out-of-the-box templates, but those fall short in creating a seamless brand experience. I also love how I can schedule graphics and videos for different days and times across multiple players/screens, and set them to expire and be removed automatically on a certain date.

Cons

One downside is they don't really offer weekend support. (I was able to get someone to message me back once, but the problem couldn't be resolved until Monday). We are a church and if something goes down on Sunday, we are out of luck. Most of the issues we were having were related to our players being on WiFi, which has as much to do with us as it does with them. Since we've hardwired all our players, we've been pretty much incident free. Their lower-end PC's, which they ship by default, leave much to be desired. Consider upgrading a level or two for enhanced performance and reliability. I wish the dashboard was mobile friendly. It is doable to scroll around and edit a few things on a smartphone, but it's less than ideal. In today's mobile world, I need to be able to make simple edits and check on player status' on the go quickly. Overall, it's backend dashboard is stuck in the past... but it does what it needs to do!

An honest consumer review for the Reach CMS

Ultimately, Reach has allowed for quick updates to our client ads. Although most features offered by Reach are not something our company needs, they do however open potential opportunities for us to offer to our clients and utilize in the future. Furthermore, Reach did not have a specific feature that one of their competitors does offer (Watchfire Ignite), but I was able to provide the details of this new feature to a Reach Support Representative and they promised to submit this as a potential feature for the Reach CMS. This may or may not be implemented, but my concern was gladly heard - as such, the Reach customer service has been a very positive experience for myself.

Pros

Features available enable us to compete with most of our competition and surpass others. Which in our case, allows us to offer our clients state-of-the-art service.

Cons

Due to this being a web-based system, certain clunky response times for content updates, caching concerns, CSS consistency errors, etc - all account for a demerit in consumer value. Most of which can be addressed with future front-end updates to the Reach software. Largest concern from a front-end development standpoint would be major inconsistencies in responsive view (mobile, tablet). There should be no limitations between devices. Granted, although many of these appear concerning, the web-based route allows for flexible updates on a diverse set of systems, web-based integrations for RSS Feeds/Social Content, and many other valuable features which would hold its weight in limitations if Reach were a standalone application.

Great software and design overall

Besides some previous models having hardware issues, the overall experience has been great. Customer support is quick to assist.

Pros

Our customized Opal Foods dashboard that displays the temperature and weather of all our locations while also displaying announcements.

Cons

The 'player' names under the player tab do not match the 'playlist' names under the announcements tab. For example, one of our playlist names is "Demo", which does not reflect the corresponding player name "Hathaway Processing". This can be a problem when moving players around.

Large Scale Migration of 300 Screens

We had a huge problem. Find a new Content platform for our 300 screens. Find a platform that could handle scheduling. We had outgrown our in-house solution which was lacking in a multitude of features that we found on Reach. The support has always been 100% friendly and helpful, and Reach is always responsive to our needs.

Pros

Without Question, Reach has the best and most flexible scheduling solution I have seen. We like to present relevant and live information on our screens as a complement to our advertiser's content. What better or more pertinent content than a Schedule. Many of our clients are Arenas, and scheduling is thus an essential requirement. When we were looking to migrate, we thought we could never find a suitable scheduling platform until we found Reach. Of course, we do more than schedule, but that is what I like most.

Cons

There is not a lot to dislike. I can see improvements with the online calendar by adding more features, and I know those are on the way.

Great for First Impressions

Pros

This platform allows us to showcase our offerings. We use it to show our videos of our programs in the lobby area. We also use to inform our constituents our schedule and offerings. It helps us to be more green as we do not need to print out as many flyers. We have also increased the number of current participants that may not know other offerings we have and now

Cons

We are not able to connect it to our current software. We have to manually create the feeds through the REACH Program. It would be easier if it was able to work together.