More Google reviews for a small shop: ask on the receipt

Imagine a small salon in Al Barsha. The regulars love it, the same faces come back every month, and on Google it has a handful of reviews, the newest from last year. Someone who has just moved into the area searches for a salon nearby, sees the stars and the number of reviews first, and books somewhere else.

The salon does not need to be better. It needs its happy customers to say so, and they will, if someone asks at the right moment.

Ask at the right moment

The best moment to ask for a review is right after a good experience: the customer has paid, they like what they got, and they are still at the counter. A message a week later gets ignored. A sign on the wall gets read once. The one thing every customer holds at the right moment is the receipt.

A QR at the foot of every sale receipt

Paste your Google review link once and every printed sale receipt ends with a short line, "Happy with us? Scan to rate us", and a QR code. The customer scans it with the phone camera and Google's review form for your shop opens. No searching for your name, no landing on another shop with a similar name.

The line is printed in the receipt's language, and it carries no brand of ours: it is your shop asking.

"Rate us" on the receipt page and in WhatsApp

Many customers ask for the receipt on WhatsApp instead of paper. When you share a receipt by WhatsApp from the Receipts page, the message ends with "Rate us" and your link. If your shop has its online address set up, the message also carries a link to the customer's receipt page, and that page shows a Rate us button under the receipt. One link, three places, nothing extra to remember.

Find your review link and paste it once

1. Open your Google Business Profile with the Google account that manages your shop's listing, choose Ask for reviews, and copy the short link it shows. It starts with https://g.page/ or https://search.google.com/.
2. In CreekPOS Online, open Settings → Shop and paste it into Review link (Google). The link is kept per branch, like the receipt's header and footer, so each branch can send its customers to its own listing.
3. In the desktop program, the same field is in Settings → General.
4. Make a test sale, print it and scan the QR with your own phone.

If you paste something that is not a web address (words, a link with a space in the middle, an e-mail address), it is refused with a message and nothing changes. To stop printing the QR, empty the box and save.

Works in the desktop program too

The review QR is on every plan of CreekPOS Online and in the buy-once desktop program. The desktop prints the same line and QR on its receipts, and its WhatsApp receipt text ends with "Rate us" and your link.

Good practice: honest reviews only

• Ask everyone, not only the ones who smiled. The QR is on every sale receipt for exactly that reason. A shop with honest four- and five-star reviews and a few fair complaints looks real.
• Never buy reviews, and never pay for them with a discount. "Five stars and get 10 % off" is the kind of review Google's rules do not allow, and it can cost you the reviews you earned honestly.
• Do not pressure. No standing over the customer while they type, no writing the review on their phone for them. One friendly sentence from the cashier is enough: "If you were happy, the QR at the bottom takes a minute."
• Answer reviews: the good ones with a short thank-you, the bad ones calmly and with what you will do about it. People read the answers as carefully as the stars.
• Teach it on day one. New cashiers should know where the QR is and the one sentence that goes with it.

Good to know

• The QR prints on sale receipts only: never on a return, a void, a delivery slip or a test print.
• The thermal receipt carries it; the A4 invoice does not.
• CreekPOS does not post, read or answer reviews for you, and it does not count scans. The review is between the customer and Google; you read and answer it in your Google Business Profile.
• The link is yours: CreekPOS prints the review link you paste and adds nothing to it.

See the review QR on the e-receipt page and the receipt page chapter of the manual.