Google Review QR Decals: Turning Foot Traffic Into Reviews

The short answer

Use the short review link from your Google Business Profile, cut the code big enough for where it lives, put it where the customer is already feeling good about you, and write one plain line next to it that says what happens when they scan. Then scan it yourself before you trust it.

Step 1: get the right link

Sign in to your Google Business Profile and look for the option to ask for reviews or share a review link. Google gives you a short link that opens the "write a review" box directly. Use that one. Do not paste a long search-results URL or a Maps link into a QR generator: longer links make a denser code with smaller squares, which is harder to cut cleanly and harder to scan from a distance.

The same goes for Yelp, Facebook, or your own site. Shorter is better. If your link is long, shorten it first and keep the short link's account alive.

Step 2: put it where the good feeling is

A review QR code works when it meets the customer at the moment they are happy. Think about where that moment happens in your business.

• The counter or register. The customer is standing still, phone in hand, paying for something they wanted. This is the best spot in most shops. A 3 to 4 inch code on the counter or the back of the register works.
• The exit door, inside. People read the door on the way out. A 4 to 6 inch code at eye level, around 55 to 65 inches off the floor, with the wording facing in.
• The table or the chair. Salons, barbershops, restaurants, and repair shops have a captive few minutes. A small code where the customer is sitting outperforms a big one by the door.
• The truck. For service businesses the job ends in the customer's driveway. A code on the rear door or side panel next to "How did we do?" catches them while you are packing up. See our custom QR code decals for any link.

The front window facing the street is the weakest spot. Nobody walking past scans a review code for a business they haven't been inside, and glare on glass hurts the scan.

Step 3: size it to the scan distance

A rough rule: a phone scans a clean code from about ten times its width. A 3 inch code scans from roughly 30 inches, which is counter distance. A 6 inch code scans from about 5 feet, which is door distance. An 8 to 12 inch code is right for a truck panel, where the customer is standing a few feet back. When in doubt, go one size up; a bigger code never hurts.

Cut vinyl adds one more constraint: the little squares in the code have to survive being weeded and applied. That's why short links matter, and why every code we cut gets scanned off the actual proof before it ships.

Step 4: write one line next to it

A bare code gets ignored. A line of text tells people why to bother. Keep it to a few words and say what happens:

• "Scan to review us on Google"
• "Happy with your visit? Tell Google. 30 seconds."
• "How did we do? Scan to leave a review"

Put the line directly under or beside the code in letters at least an inch tall at a counter, two inches at a door. Add your Google rating only if you are proud of it. Match the font and color to the rest of your storefront door lettering so the whole front reads as one piece.

What not to do

• Don't offer anything for the review. Google's review policies do not allow paying, discounting, or giving gifts in exchange for reviews, and they also prohibit steering only happy customers to Google while sending unhappy ones elsewhere. Ask everyone the same way.
• Don't pre-write the review. Let people say what they want. Copy-paste reviews get filtered.
• Don't link to a page that asks them to log in to something else first. Every extra step loses most of the people who scanned.
• Don't put the only code behind glass with heavy tint or reflection. If it has to go on the window, put it on the inside, reverse-cut, and test it from outside at a few times of day.

Test it, then ask

Scan the installed decal with two different phones from the distance a customer would use. Then do the one thing that beats any decal: have the person at the counter point to it and say "if you've got a second, that helps us a lot." The decal makes the ask easy. The ask makes the decal work.

Want the code to match the rest of the glass? Pair it with a storefront door decal set and social media decals in the same color.

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