QR Codes for Google Reviews: Doing It Properly

What stops a satisfied customer from leaving a review is rarely reluctance — it is the number of steps. Open Google Maps, search the business name, confirm it is the right branch, scroll to reviews, tap the stars, write. Six steps between goodwill and a published review.

A QR code cuts that to two: scan, and write.

Getting the right link

The most common mistake is generating a code from your Maps profile URL. That opens the listing and leaves the customer hunting for the review button — which is the original problem again.

What you need is the direct review link, which opens the star dialog immediately:

1. Open your profile in Google Business Profile.
2. From the home screen choose Ask for reviews.
3. You get a short link shaped like g.page/r/…/review.
4. That is the link you turn into a QR code — nothing else.

Test it yourself from a phone that is not signed into your account before printing anything. The correct link opens the stars straight away.

Where the code actually belongs

Placement decides the outcome far more than design does:

• With the bill or receipt — the strongest moment, because the experience just ended and is still vivid.
• On the table in restaurants and cafes, as a small card rather than a wall sticker.
• At the till, sized to be read at arm's length.
• On the practitioner's card in clinics and salons.
• At the end of a session — staff show it on their phone and the customer scans.

What does not work: a sticker on a glass door people walk past on their way out, or a code placed where someone has to take two steps toward it.

Four technical rules that quietly break codes

Size. No smaller than 3cm for close-range print, 10cm for anything scanned from a metre away. Small codes fail in dim lighting.

Contrast. Dark on light. Coloured codes on coloured backgrounds look elegant and fail to scan.

Quiet zone. Leave a clear margin of at least four modules around the code. Without it the camera cannot find its edges.

One line of text underneath. "Scan to review us on Google" — a bare code reads as an anonymous advert, and people do not scan anonymous.

The rule that protects your profile

The code must be shown to every customer equally, not only to the ones who looked pleased. Offering it to smiling customers and hiding it from unhappy ones is review gating — a violation that lands on the entire profile. We covered the full boundary in asking for reviews without breaking the rules.

And never attach an offer or discount to it. Google prohibits incentives explicitly.

Knowing whether it works

Print two different codes for two different placements — one on the table, one with the receipt — and watch which produces more reviews over a fortnight. The result usually surprises people, and the gap between placements is wider than the gap between designs.

The short version

Right link, adequate size, positioned at the moment of completion, offered equally to all. That is the whole checklist.

In Raddly you generate a QR code per branch in one tap, so every branch's reviews land on a single screen — with the reply already drafted in your customer's dialect, waiting for your approval.