Engage Customers with This Review/GIF Display for Small Businesses

Running a small business today is not an easy thing to do. In addition to providing great products and/or services at competitive prices, you also have to navigate modern marketing and customer engagement strategies. That requires a solid plan for your online presence — particularly on Google Maps. A huge percentage of customers find local businesses through Google Maps and so you need to make the most of it, with reviews being very important. However, getting those reviews is difficult in its own right, which is why Julius Curt developed this Review/GIF display for small businesses.

The purpose of this device is to encourage customers to leave reviews for the business on Google, making the business stand out more to potential new customers searching on Google Maps. It does that by first grabbing the attention of customers already inside with fun GIFs, then giving them an opportunity to choose a GIF of their own to display after leaving a review. It is a fun and novel way to connect with customers while benefiting the business.

The hardware to make that happen is actually pretty minimal. It consists of a computer monitor and a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B, paired with the appropriate power supplies. A laser-cut acrylic panel covers most of the monitor’s screen in order to draw attention to the important (uncovered) elements: the business name/logo, the GIFs, and the QR code with instructions for use. The acrylic panel probably isn’t strictly necessary, but it does make the whole thing look nicer.

That QR code is important, because the entire system relies on Google Maps and customers need an easy way to leave a review for the correct business. When they scan the QR code, their smartphone takes them to the Google page to leave a review. Once the system detects a new review (through the Google Maps API), it replaces the oldest of the three GIFs with a new QR code. The customer can then scan that to choose a new GIF based on a selection provided by Giphy’s API. Giphy has a huge library of GIFs, so the customer will have plenty to choose from.

Curt programmed that functionality with the help of ChatGPT. The system uses FastAPI on the backend with a PostgreSQL database, and Javascript with CSS for the frontend interface.

The ingenuity here is impressive. This is a very affordable way to encourage customers to leave reviews without annoying them, which is bound to be good for business.