Amy and I were out shopping for vacuum cleaners on Friday night (such romantics we are) and came across what looked like a promising model. The box didn’t have a lot of info, but it did have a QR (quick response) code. So we scanned it.
How did the vacuum QR code work? From a customer-focused standpoint, it kind of sucked.
Instead of getting some kind of customized experience, the code sent us to the company’s … home page. Which had a bunch of unrelated information and, after scrolling, found a panel with a link to info on vacuums. I clicked on that, and came upon a list of products that I had to sift through. At Amy’s prompting, I finally ended the UX experiment and typed the model number into the search box and retrieved the information.
Here, once again, was a company that embraced the shiny technology of QR codes only to deliver a poor customer experience. Small wonder it’s so hard to find evidence of anyone scanning a QR code in the wild, let alone finding the technology useful.
I’ve said it before, and will say it again: If you must use a QR code, do it to meet a goal or provide a solution, not to be trendy. Many people are already sick of anything related to QR codes because marketers find so many dumb and impractical ways to use them. We ended up buying another model, and I’m not sure having a dedicated website would have sold us, but just taking a few minutes to produce a QR code that went straight to the product page would have spoken volumes about their understanding of technology and their customers.
Ultimately, think about what would help your customers and whether a QR code is a practical way to deliver it. It’s really that simple.