Ask for a review while the visit is still fresh. Scanning drops the customer directly on your review form instead of making them search for you.
Placement beats design here. A code by the door is scanned by people already leaving; one on the receipt or at the pay point catches the moment the visit ended. Note that the major review platforms all prohibit showing the code only to customers who say they were happy.
Enter content to generate QR code
The code holds the address of your review form on whichever platform you choose. Paste a full link and it is encoded as-is. Paste a Google Place ID instead, with Google selected, and it is turned into the standard Google "write a review" address for that place — the one that opens the star dialog directly rather than your listing. The customer’s phone opens it in the browser or, if the platform’s app is installed, in the app.
Google selected, with a Place ID rather than a link, and the code holds:
https://search.google.com/local/writereview?placeid=ChIJN1t_tDeuEmsRUsoyG83frY4Given a Place ID, the generator builds Google's own write-a-review address, which opens the star dialog rather than your listing. Paste a full URL instead and it is encoded exactly as given — for the four non-Google platforms that is the only accepted form.
For Google, open your Business Profile and use "Ask for reviews" — it gives a short link that lands on the star dialog. The Place ID route works too if you have it. For Yelp, TripAdvisor, Trustpilot and Facebook, paste the full write-a-review URL from your own page on that platform; a non-Google value that is not a URL is encoded exactly as typed, so it must be the whole address.
Open the encoded address on a phone that is not signed in as your business, and check it lands on a review form for the right location rather than on a search page or the wrong branch. Multi-site businesses get this wrong most often: one code copied across five locations sends every review to whichever branch was set up first.
A bare code gets ignored. The line beside it does the work: say what you want ("Rate us on Google — it takes 20 seconds") and put it where the visit is finishing, on the receipt or at the pay point, not by the door. Codes on tables collect fewer reviews than codes on bills, because the moment matters more than the placement.
Google, Yelp, TripAdvisor and Trustpilot all forbid gating (filtering customers so only satisfied ones reach the review form), and they forbid paying for reviews or offering a discount in exchange. Enforcement ranges from removing the reviews to flagging the listing. A code that everybody who paid can scan is both the compliant approach and the one that produces a rating people believe.
Switching platform later, or moving to a new listing after a rebrand, orphans every printed static code. A dynamic QR code encodes a fixed short link, so the receipts, cards and table tents already in circulation follow you across the change, and its scan counts tell you which placement actually earns reviews, which is otherwise guesswork.
Google is the only one that can be built from an identifier: paste either the short link from "Ask for reviews" in your Business Profile, or your Place ID. Yelp, TripAdvisor, Trustpilot and Facebook all need the full write-a-review URL from your own page on that platform, because a value that is not a URL is encoded exactly as typed.
Google, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Trustpilot and Facebook. Google is the only one that can build the address from an ID; for the others, paste the full write-a-review URL from your own page.
At the point the visit ends — on the receipt, the bill or the pay-point card. A code on a table competes with the meal; a code on the bill catches people while the experience is fresh and their hands are already free.
No. Google, Yelp, TripAdvisor and Trustpilot all prohibit incentivized reviews, and filtering customers so only happy ones see the code breaks the same rules. Put the code where everyone who paid will see it.
Only with a dynamic QR code, which records each scan with the date, country and device — enough to compare a receipt code against a counter card. A static code involves no server and so cannot be counted.
Not on a static code. If you might switch platform or move to a new listing, use a dynamic code: the printed pattern stays the same and you repoint the short link it carries.