← Blog · Business · 4 min read
A QR code that asks for a Google review
The code is the easy part. Getting a link that opens the review box, rather than your listing, is where most attempts go wrong.
The link has to open the box, not the listing
A link to your Google Business Profile drops the customer on your listing, where they then have to find the reviews section, scroll, and tap "Write a review". Most will not.
What you want is the link that opens the review dialog directly. Google provides it: in your Business Profile, look for "Ask for reviews" or "Get more reviews" and copy the short link it gives you. That link is the one to encode.
Our generator has a review type that builds this for you from a place ID, which avoids copying the wrong URL.
Where the code goes
Timing beats placement. The moment someone is most likely to leave a good review is when they are pleased and not yet gone — on the receipt, on the card that comes with the bill, on the counter beside the till.
A code on a poster by the door catches people already leaving. It works, but far less well than something they are holding.
Say what it does
An unlabelled QR code gets ignored, and increasingly it gets distrusted — people have learned that codes in public places are sometimes not what they claim. "Leave us a Google review" scanned from a receipt is clear about where it leads.
Adding a line like "it takes thirty seconds" measurably helps, because the objection is usually effort rather than unwillingness.
What not to do
Do not offer anything in exchange for a review. Google's policies prohibit incentivised reviews, and reviews obtained that way can be removed along with the goodwill you were trying to build.
Do not filter — showing the code only to happy customers, or routing unhappy ones somewhere else, is against Google's terms and is usually obvious in the review pattern.
Ask everyone, and let the average be the average.
Print it properly
This code is usually small — a corner of a receipt, a business card. Small is where the quiet zone matters most: keep the white border, and do not let it sit flush against a printed edge.
Receipt printers are also low resolution and the paper is often slightly grey. Print a real one on the real paper and scan it before committing to a run of five thousand.
Static code — nothing expires, no account, no sign-up.
Make a review QR code →