Google review QR codes and cards, done properly

Of everything covered in how to get more Google reviews, the single highest-converting method for anyone who does work in person is embarrassingly low-tech: a small card with a QR code, handed over at the end of the job.

It works because it removes the two things that kill review requests. The delay, because you are asking now rather than tonight. And the search, because the code opens the review box directly rather than dropping someone into Google to find you.

Get the right link

There are several URLs that look like they might be your review link, and only one of them is.

Sign in to your Google Business Profile, on the web or in the app, and look for Ask for reviews. It hands you a short link. That is the one. It is built on your Place ID, so it keeps working if you rename the business, and it opens the write-a-review box with the star selector already showing.

What you want to avoid pointing a printed card at:

• A Google Maps search URL. It lands on results, not on you.
• Your website. Adding a step to a process whose entire value is having no steps.
• A link from a third-party review tool that routes through their domain. If you stop paying them, every card you printed becomes a dead link.

Test the link on a phone that is not signed in as the business, and test it on both iPhone and Android. It should show the review box within one tap.

Make the code static

This is the mistake that quietly ruins printed material.

Most free QR generators offer a "dynamic" code. It encodes a link to their server, which then redirects to yours. That sounds useful, because you can change the destination later and see scan counts. It also means a third party now sits between your customer and your review page for the life of every card you print. Those services expire, start charging, or disappear.

A static code encodes your review URL directly. Nothing sits in the middle, it cannot expire, and it works for ever. You lose scan analytics. For a card handed to a customer in a kitchen, that is not a meaningful loss.

Generate it at a decent size, save it as SVG or high-resolution PNG, and keep the file somewhere you will find it again.

Design the card so it gets used

The card is not a business card with a code on the back. It is one instruction.

Front:

Happy with the job? Scan this and tell people. It takes about thirty seconds. [QR code] [Business name]

That is enough. What to leave off:

• Your services list. Nobody scanning has a purchasing decision to make.
• Social icons. Every additional destination reduces the chance of the one you want.
• The word "please". It shifts the card from an invitation to a plea.

Practical points that matter more than they should: print the code at least 2cm square, keep a quiet white margin around it, and do not print it on a dark or glossy stock, because both hurt scanning. Matte white, black code.

Hand it over, do not leave it out

A stack of cards on a counter converts at close to nothing. The same card handed to a person, with a sentence, converts many times better, because the request is now attached to a human interaction rather than sitting in the visual noise of a reception desk.

Say the sentence out loud as you pass it across:

Really glad you are happy with it. If you scan that, it takes about thirty seconds and it genuinely helps people round here find us.

Then stop talking. Some people will scan it there and then. Most will do it that evening. A few never will, and that is fine, because you asked everyone.

Where else the code earns its place

• On the invoice, as an image, next to the payment details.
• A sticker inside the door for anywhere with a counter, at eye level rather than on the floor.
• On the van, which sounds gimmicky and occasionally produces a review from a customer who forgot.
• In your email signature, small, with four words next to it.

None of these beat the handover. They catch the people you missed.

The part people skip

A QR code is a way of asking. It is not a system, because it still depends on you having cards in your pocket and remembering to hand one over.

Cards run out during the busy fortnight when you are doing the most jobs, which is precisely when you can least afford to stop asking. So print more than you think, keep a stack in the van rather than the office, and back the whole thing up with a request attached to the invoice, which goes out whether or not anyone remembered anything. That belt-and-braces approach is what scaling reviews actually looks like in a small business.