Where to put your review QR code

The test a placement has to pass

A review QR code is not a sign. A sign only has to be seen; a code has to be seen, scanned, and then followed by a couple of minutes of someone’s attention. That is a much narrower ask, and it means most of the places you would naturally stick a poster are the wrong ones. Three conditions, and a placement needs all three:

• The experience is over. There is nothing left to say about a meal halfway through.
• The phone is already out, or one hand is free. People do not dig through a bag for a poster.
• They are not moving. Anyone walking towards a door is gone, whatever the sign says.

Run every idea below through those three. It explains, without any further theory, why the code by the entrance never gets scanned and why the one that arrives with the bill does.

The counter or the till

Strong, for one specific reason: paying is the moment the phone comes out anyway. It is already unlocked, the transaction is finished, and the customer is standing still.

The failure mode is the queue. If somebody is waiting behind them, nobody writes a review — they take the bag and move. In a café at the morning rush the counter is the worst spot in the building; in a quiet shop where you chat while the card machine thinks, it is the best. Look at your own counter at your busiest hour before you decide.

The table

A table tent works, with one correction that changes everything: do not leave it out for the whole meal. An object that has been on the table since the guests sat down has stopped being visible by the time they finish — it is furniture, in the same category as the salt. It also asks at the wrong time, before there is anything to review.

Bring it with the bill instead, or print it on the bill folder. Same card, same words, and now it arrives at the one moment it makes sense: the meal is finished, the verdict is formed, and everyone is sitting down waiting for the card machine anyway.

The bill, the receipt, the invoice

If your till can print a code on the receipt, this is the least friction of any placement: no object, no stand, nobody to remember it. It also travels — the receipt comes out of a pocket at home, catching the people who were in too much of a hurry at the table.

For trades and clinics, the same logic applies to the paper invoice — next to the payment details, where the eye already goes.

But not in an email. Nobody scans a code on the screen they are reading it on. An emailed invoice needs a plain tappable link, not a picture of one. Same destination; the QR is simply the wrong container for a screen.

Hotels: not the key card

The key card sleeve is handed over at check-in, the earliest possible moment in the stay: the guest has not slept in the bed yet. Whatever goes in that sleeve asks about a hotel they have not experienced.

Two placements do work in a hotel, for different guests:

• The desk or bedside card, read on the last morning. Bags are packed, the stay is over, and there is a quiet moment before checkout. Word it for that moment.
• The checkout counter. Same reasoning as the till, with the same queue caveat — and at checkout the queue is usually worse, so the in-room card is the one to get right first.

Salons, clinics and anywhere with an appointment

The mirror at the end of a haircut is one of the few genuinely great placements in any trade: the customer is looking directly at the result, the verdict is being formed in real time, and they are sitting still with both hands free.

Reception, while the next appointment is being booked, is the second. There is a natural pause while somebody checks a calendar, and a small card on the desk fills it.

Takeaway and delivery

A sticker on the bag or the lid, because the moment you want is not at the shop — it is at home, when the food turned out to be good. It is the one placement here that breaks the “ask immediately” rule, and it works because the object travels to the right moment on its own.

Where a code simply dies

• The entrance and the window. People arriving have nothing to review; people leaving are walking. A code by the door earns its place as somewhere to read reviews, not to write them, and that is a different job.
• Business cards handed to someone. The card goes in a pocket and the moment is over.
• Anywhere hands are full — the pickup shelf, the coat rack, the exit of a takeaway with a bag in each hand.
• The toilet door. It gets suggested surprisingly often. People do have their phones out; they are also mid-meal and not thinking about you.

The physical details that break a code

A QR code fails in boring, physical ways, and they are worth your attention because a code that does not scan looks identical to one that does.

• Size follows distance. A code read from across a counter has to be much bigger than one on a table card. Print it, stand where the customer stands, scan it. That test takes less time than reading a rule about it.
• Keep the quiet zone. The blank margin around a code is part of the code. Text or a border crowding right up to the edge is a common way to break one.
• Dark on light, and enough contrast. Inverted and brand-coloured codes on a dark background sometimes read and sometimes do not, depending on the phone. Test one on an old Android as well as a new iPhone.
• Glare beats everything. A glossy laminate under a spotlight, or a table by a sunny window, can make a good code unreadable. Matte finish, given the choice.
• One code per location. If you have two branches, they need two codes pointing at two Google listings, or you will never know which place a review is about — and neither will the person reading it.

The part that is not the poster

However good the placement, the code is an invitation and not a demand. Google’s content policy for Business Profiles is explicit that merchants should not require or pressure people into leaving a review while they are on the premises, and it prohibits offering anything in exchange for one.

Within that, one sentence from the person who served them beats any card: “if you have a moment, that code really helps us.” The poster is what they scan; the sentence is why.

If you have not built the link the code points at yet, the companion guide covers the Place ID and what to write on the card. ReviewQR will generate the code and the printable posters from your Google listing if you would rather not make them by hand.