Google review QR code: how to set one up for your shop

Your staff will not remember to ask for a review. Not because they are careless — because at 8pm on a Saturday there are six people waiting and the card machine is being slow. Asking is the first thing to go.

A QR code on the counter does not forget. It asks every customer, in the same words, whether it is Tuesday morning or Saturday night.

Indians are already comfortable with this. Most smartphone users here have scanned a QR code, a large share do it daily, and there are hundreds of millions of UPI QR codes stuck to counters across the country. You are not teaching a new habit. You are borrowing one that already exists.

The plain version: how to make one

1. Find your review link. Open your Google Business Profile, choose Ask for reviews, and copy the short link Google gives you. It looks like g.page/r/....
2. Turn it into a QR code. Any free generator will do it. Download it large — at least 1000 pixels wide, or it will look furry when printed.
3. Print it with a sentence. Not just the code. "Happy with us today? Two taps to leave a review" does more work than the code itself.
4. Stand it up at the counter. Flat on a surface is worse than upright. People read what is at eye level while they wait.

That is the whole thing. It costs nothing but the printing.

The three mistakes

Putting it where nobody waits. The best spot is wherever the customer stands still with their phone already out — the billing counter, almost always. A code on the door is a code nobody scans. A code on the table works for restaurants, where the waiting happens at the table rather than the till.

Making it say "review us". That is about you. "Happy with your meal?" is about them, and it does noticeably better. The ask should sound like the end of a conversation, not a request for a favour.

Dropping the customer on an empty box. This is the big one. A plain review QR sends people straight to Google's review form — a blank text field and a blinking cursor. Most people close it. Not because they are unhappy, but because writing something is work, and they were only being nice.

What to do about the empty box

The fix is to put one step in between: a page that helps them say what they already think.

That is what Sunaam's Assist QR does. The customer taps a face to rate, taps a couple of things that stood out — friendly staff, good value — and types a few words in whatever language they think in, including Hinglish or Banglish. Those words get tidied into a clear review in the language they chose. They read it, change anything they want, and post it themselves.

Two things worth being clear about, because they matter:

• Nothing is invented. The words are theirs, made readable. We do not write an opinion they did not have.
• Every rating goes to Google. Including the low ones. Some tools quietly show unhappy customers a private feedback form instead of Google — that is review gating, Google prohibits it, and it is not something we build.

What good looks like

A single-outlet restaurant collecting five to ten reviews a week from a counter code is doing well. That is enough to move a rating, and far more than the occasional trickle from asking by mouth.

The number that actually matters is not reviews collected. It is whether new customers walking past choose you over the place next door — and that follows your rating, your recency, and whether you reply.

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Sunaam gives every business a review QR that works this way, along with printed stands and cards. See how it works.