Send a Google review NFC card out with every restaurant bill

Plenty of people who enjoy a meal never get round to leaving a review, not because they did not mean to, but because by the time they are home the moment has gone. A Google review NFC card sits in the bill folder or next to the card machine, and the guest taps it with their phone while they are still at the table. Your Google review page opens straight away, no typing, no searching for your restaurant. The card carries your review link, either written onto a blank card by you or programmed by us before we ship.

Fill the bill folders Writing forty cards yourself

The bill folder is the moment

Payment is the one point in the meal where the whole table stops and looks at the same object. The folder comes down, the card machine comes out, phones are already in hands because someone is splitting it. That is the window. It is a short one, and it closes the moment people start gathering coats.

Slot a card into the folder alongside the receipt, or stick it inside the flap so it is the first thing seen when the folder is opened. If you take payment on a handheld machine at the table, a card in a small stand set down next to the machine while it processes does the same job. The guest is waiting for the receipt anyway. There is dead time and the card fills it.

The advantage over anything you print on the receipt is that a receipt gets folded into a pocket and read never. A Google review NFC card is a physical object your server hands over and says something about.

Host stand, bar top and the folder

Set tables are the wrong place for a Google NFC review card: it is there before anyone has eaten.

Bar seating is the exception. Solo diners and people eating at the pass tend to have their phone on the bar already, and a card in a small stand within reach works there because the guest is not being watched by a table of five while they use it.

Guests who pay on the way out never see a folder. For them, put one on the host stand or by the till where people pause with their coats on, and keep the working cards in the folders.

In the bill folder, one per folder, so the NFC card arrives when the whole table has stopped
Host stand or till for guests who pay on the way out
Bar top in a small stand, where phones are already out
Not on set tables, it becomes furniture and it asks too early

Mid meal is too early, after the receipt is too late

Asking for a Google review during service interrupts the meal, and it puts the guest in an awkward spot because they have not finished forming an opinion yet. Dessert might still be coming. The coffee might be terrible.

Asking after the payment has gone through and the receipt is signed is too late the other way. At that point people are standing, someone is at the door, and you are talking to the back of a coat. The bill sits between the two, which is why the card goes in the folder.

The Google review card still waits for the folder when a guest brings it up first. Someone tells your server the lamb was the best thing they have eaten all year: thank them, and leave it at that. They get the same card, the same line and the same moment as every other table, so nobody is picked out for an early ask.

One person per section owns the folder

Decide who does the handover before service starts. A bill can pass through three pairs of hands, and if a runner drops the folder while the section server takes payment, the NFC review card goes down in silence. Make it one person's job on the section.

A section server has the folder in their hand and a couple of seconds, so their line rides on the bill going down. A manager doing a table walk leaves the card where it is and lets the folder do the asking, so every table hears the line once, at the bill.

The awkward table is the eight where one person is paying and six are already in their coats. Card in front of whoever holds the machine, say the line to them, let the rest go. If it is still in the folder when you clear it, so be it.

A Tuesday review counts as much as a Saturday one

Saturday is when the folder card is most likely to go down in silence, because the section is full and the server is already at the next table. Tuesday is when it is most likely to be forgotten, because the room is half empty and it feels like there is nobody to ask. Both nights get the Google NFC card.

A Tuesday review sits on your listing next to a Saturday one, and the person reading both is deciding where to book in three weeks. Nothing in your Google reviews tells them which night was quiet.

Count Google review cards by bill folder, not by cover

A table of six only gets one bill. If you have thirty tables you are probably running thirty to forty folders, so you want an NFC Google review card in every one of them, plus a few spare for the folders that come back without one. That is roughly forty to fifty cards for a thirty table room.

Add a few for the places that are not folders. One at the host stand, one at the bar, and two or three in aprons for servers who want one to hand instead of leaving it in the folder.

If you have a private dining room or a function space that runs separately, treat it as its own room and give it its own set. The person paying for a party of forty is often not the person who ate, and you want a card in front of the organiser at the end.

Under 15 tables: about 25 cards
15 to 30 tables: about 40 to 50 cards
30 to 60 tables: about 75 to 100 cards
Private dining or function space: 10 to 15 of its own

Several branches, several review pages

Same brand, different kitchens. The Leeds room and the Manchester room have their own Google listings and their own review pages, so a guest who ate in Leeds and taps a card pointing at Manchester has praised a kitchen they never sat in. Get that wrong and every Google review piles onto the flagship while the newer room reads like nobody has booked it. Check the listing names too: a site trading under the bar's name has its own listing, and so does a function suite in a hotel dining room.

A group ops manager opening a new site can order blank and write forty NFC cards with a free phone app the week before, under a minute each. A single site owner who wants them in the folders the day the box lands pastes the review link in the basket note and lets us write them.

Order a separate batch for each branch, so each site's folders are filled from its own box. Keep a few blanks at head office for the Google review NFC card that walks out mid service.

Every folder, including the table that barely spoke

The Google NFC review card goes to every table. Not just the table that sent its compliments to the kitchen, not only the ones who told your server the food was lovely. Reading a table and deciding it does not get one is filtering, and Google does not allow it.

It also does not work in practice on a service. You are reading a full section at once. Plenty of the people who look unimpressed are just tired, and the only way to find out is to give them the card.

If a server wants to send out a free pudding to make up for a slow starter, fine, but it goes out whether or not that table taps the NFC card, and nobody mentions the card when it does.

One line as the bill goes down

Pick the one that sounds like your front of house. The table that waited forty minutes for mains hears exactly the same words.

“Bill's in there, and a little card with it. Tap it with your phone and tell people about tonight.”
“There's a card in the folder. Tap it with your phone if you fancy leaving us a review, it opens straight up.”
“That's the bill. Card in there for reviews if you're that way inclined, no worries either way.”
“Here's the bill, hope the lamb was alright. There's a card in the folder, tap it with your phone and it goes to our Google page.”
“Machine's just thinking. There's a review card there if you want it, one tap and it opens.”

Before the Google review NFC cards go in the folders

Should the card be stuck inside the bill folder or left loose?

Either works. The back is 3M adhesive, so a card pressed inside the flap stays with the folder and is there every time it opens. Loose cards can be handed over or moved between folders, but the odd one will walk. Before you peel the backing, hold one inside the flap and tap it with a phone: a metal plate or clip behind it can block the signal, and peeling a stuck card off can damage it.

The table is splitting the bill four ways. Who gets the card?

Pass it round. A tap does not use the NFC card up, and every tap opens the same review page, so one card can go round the table while the machine does. Put it in front of whoever pays first and let it follow the machine.

Should we put a card in every takeaway bag?

We would not. A card in a bag goes home with the food and does not come back, so you are buying a new card for every order. Stick one by the spot where takeaway orders are collected instead, away from metal, where people stand with their phone out while the order is bagged. Whoever hands the bag over can point to it, every customer, every time.

Do tables that only came in for drinks get the card too?

Yes. Anyone who gets a bill gets the card. A couple who shared a bottle of wine at a table by the window saw how the room runs as much as a table of six who ate, and someone choosing where to go for a drink before dinner reads those Google reviews too. Same folder, same line.

Sized for your dining room

A thirty table room needs forty to fifty Google review NFC cards, one per bill folder plus spares, so a room that size starts with the 50 pack.

1 card

£7.50

£7.50 a card

Try one in a bill folder first.

10 cards

£50

£5 a card

A private dining room's own set.

50 cards

£185

£3.70 a card

Up to thirty tables, every folder plus spares.

100 cards

£300

£3 a card

Enough for a sixty table room.

Selling cards on to other restaurants? Trade pricing starts at 50 cards.

Same card, other businesses

People reading your reviews are deciding where to book. A Google review NFC card in every folder means every table, good night or slow one, got the chance to tell them.