How to set up a QR review card at your counter in 10 minutes

Setting up a QR review card takes about ten minutes: sign up, paste your Google review link, test the page, print the kit, put it next to the till. The part that decides whether it works isn't the setup — it's where the card sits and whether anyone mentions it. Both are covered below.

Google explicitly permits this whole approach. Its guidance to businesses says to "remind customers to leave reviews" and names the method: "to leave reviews, you can ask customers to visit a Google link or scan a QR code."

Before you start (1 minute)

You'll need:

• Your business name.
• Your Google review link — the one that says "Write a review", usually g.page/r/... or search.google.com/local/writereview. If you can't find it, your Google Place ID works instead and is easier to copy accurately.
• An email address for feedback alerts.
• A printer, or just your phone screen for the first day.

That's the whole list.

Step 1 — Sign up (2 minutes)

Go to signup, create an account with email and password or with Google, and verify your email. You land on the onboarding screen.

Enter:

• Business name — this shows on your public review page.
• Google review link or Place ID — paste the full URL, or the Place ID if that's what you have.
• Logo (optional) — drag and drop a PNG or JPG.

Save. You now have a hosted review page on a short slug like localreviewdesk.com/r/your-shop.

Step 2 — Test the page (1 minute)

Open the slug URL on your phone. You should see:

• your business name and logo
• a Leave a Google review button that opens Google
• a Send private feedback button that opens a short form

If either button is missing, that's a bug — both must always be visible, to every customer, with equal weight. That isn't a design preference. Google's prohibited content policy lists "discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers" as fake engagement, and the US FTC's reviews rule has banned rating-based suppression since 21 October 2024. Why the two-button page matters →

While you're on the page, tap the Google button once yourself. You want to confirm it lands on the review composer for the right business — pasting the wrong location's link is the single most common setup error, and you won't notice it from the dashboard.

Step 3 — Generate your QR card (3 minutes)

From the dashboard, click Download QR kit. You get a PDF with:

• a QR code that opens your review page
• a short URL printed underneath, for customers who don't scan
• your business name and logo

Print it, trim it, done. Print two copies — one for the counter, one as a backup for when the first gets a coffee ring on it. (If you landed here before signing up and just want the code itself, our free QR code generator that runs in your browser builds one from any review link.)

Size it properly. Below roughly 2cm × 2cm, scan reliability drops off a cliff. Keep it off reflective laminate and away from back-lit positions, which are the two conditions where phone cameras struggle most.

If you'd rather your customers tap than scan, every location also includes two NFC cards. The tradeoffs between the two are in NFC vs QR for review cards.

Step 4 — Place it where customers will actually scan (2 minutes)

The best spots:

• Counter, next to the POS. Customers see it while paying, which is the moment the experience is freshest and the phone is already out — the logic behind our setup notes for café counters.
• Table tents at sit-down venues. Customers see it while waiting for the bill.
• Receipt slip. A short thank-you line with the URL works nearly as well as a QR for people who've already left.

The worst spots:

• the front door — nobody stops there
• the bathroom — please don't

Step 5 — Actually ask (the step everyone skips)

A card alone is a prompt. A card plus a sentence from a human is a request, and the difference between them is most of your result. Being asked is the normal path to a review now: 78% of consumers were asked to write a review in the last 12 months (BrightLocal Local Consumer Review Survey, 2026).

A script that stays inside the rules:

"Quick favour — if you've got twenty seconds, tapping that card opens our Google page. And if anything wasn't right today, there's a private option on the same screen — tell us and we'll fix it."

What makes it compliant: you offered both doors to everyone, you didn't ask how they felt first, and you didn't specify a rating. Never say "a five-star review" and never attach anything of value — Google's wording is that "offering incentives, like free or discounted goods or services, in exchange for customers to post reviews... is strictly prohibited" (Google, "Tips to get more reviews").

More scripts, and the timing data behind them, in how to ask for Google reviews.

Step 6 — Watch the dashboard (1 minute, then daily)

Back in LocalReviewDesk's review dashboard you'll see:

• total scans
• Google review clicks
• private feedback submissions

Note what that middle number is and isn't. It counts customers who tapped through to Google — not reviews published. Nobody outside Google can count the second one, and any tool claiming to report "reviews generated" is inferring it. The click is the honest metric.

If you've enabled the staff picker, those clicks are also attributed per team member, which turns "ask for reviews" from a vague instruction into something visible on a per-person basis.

Your standing job from here is to respond to private feedback within 24 hours, same day where you can. That's the loop.

Common first-week issues

• "No one is scanning." Usually the card is too small, too far from where customers stand, or nobody is mentioning it. Move it next to the POS and add the sentence from step 5.
• "All the feedback is private, no Google reviews." That's fine, and it's a good sign your page isn't gating. Private feedback is the more useful operational signal; public reviews compound over weeks.
• "I got a critical piece of feedback — now what?" Reply within 24 hours, acknowledge the specific issue, say what you'll do. That's the whole playbook.
• "A review I know was left isn't showing." Google's automated systems sometimes remove legitimate reviews by mistake, and there are several benign reasons a review takes time to appear. See why a Google review isn't showing up.

Why bother

Because the output is measurable in more than pride. 97% of consumers read reviews for local businesses and 74% only consider reviews written in the last three months (BrightLocal, 2026). Google states that "more reviews and positive ratings can help your business's local ranking". And Michael Luca's Harvard Business School study linked a one-star rating increase to a 5–9% revenue lift for independent restaurants (HBS Working Paper 12-016).

Setup time, end to end: about ten minutes. The first scan usually arrives within a day. The habit is what compounds.

If you haven't committed to a card yet and want the sceptical version first, do review cards actually work walks through the mechanism, one clinic's real numbers, and the four ways a card fails.