Two minutes, one square
The square is not the clever part — it is a doorway, and it costs nothing. What decides whether it was worth printing is what is waiting behind it, and whether what the customer says is still there on Friday when you are deciding what to change.
Both of these are invented. Alfredo’s is not a real café, and the codes are drawn rather than live.
Act one · the café · rewards
Nobody fills in a feedback card. They will answer four questions from a phone that is already in their hand, if the last one is worth something. That is how a guest list gets built — one table at a time, and every name on it put there by the person it belongs to.
What to do with that list — rewards, win-backs and one screen that messages 1,284 people →
Forty seconds while they wait for the bill, and the café ends the week with numbers instead of opinions.
A card by the salt. No app, no sign-up, no leaflet — the camera is already pointing at it while they wait for the bill.
“Lovely lunch — the arancini especially. Four of us, in and out in an hour, and nobody rushed us.”
Four questions, then the two that matter: a number and a name. It asks for those last, once they have already told you the food was lovely.
The code lands on WhatsApp while they are still putting their coat on — and now you have a number you are allowed to message again.
She has just told you the arancini were lovely. That is the one moment in the whole visit when she will write a review — not in an email on Tuesday, and not on a card by the door. So it asks there, drafts what she actually said, and she taps once to post it from her own account.
A hundred and sixty-seven of this year’s reviews came off the card on the table, and the rating went from 4.4 to 4.7. Nothing was written for anybody and nothing went up without them pressing it — a review your system posted is a fake review, and that is a fine rather than a marketing win.
Lovely lunch — the arancini especially. Four of us, in and out in an hour, and nobody rushed us.
It drafts what she actually said and she posts it from her own account. Nothing is written for her and nothing goes up without her pressing it — a review your system posted is a fake review, and both Google and the CMA take a dim view. The only thing being automated is the asking, at the one moment she was pleased.
A review site gives you a star rating and an argument. This gives you the same week in numbers you can act on — what sold, what people noticed, and twenty-two phone numbers that asked to hear from you.
Five people said the door was cold. That is a table you are not selling, every service, all winter — and the only reason you know is that somebody asked at the right moment and wrote it down.
| What people said | Times | |
|---|---|---|
| Arancini | 11 | put it on the board |
| Service was quick | 8 | good |
| Too cold by the door | 5 | worth a look |
| Card machine slow | 3 | worth a look |
Five people said the same thing about the door in one week. That is not a review site nobody reads — it is a draught, a table nobody wants, and a number you can ring when it is fixed.
Act two · the one on the lamp post
Nobody reads an advert taped to a lamp post. Everybody reads this one, all the way to the bottom, and then scans it to find out how it ends.
PLEASE READ
You know exactly who you are.
Well. You stopped.
It is a hoax, and we are sorry. But you did read all of it standing in the cold — so let us make it up to you.
A stunt by Alfredo’s, 14 Tib Street. No relationships were harmed. 214 people have scanned this today — 61 of them walked in.
Two hundred and fourteen scans in a day, sixty-one of them through the door — and every one of them arrived in a good mood, because they were in on the joke.
Fly-posting is a conversation with the council, so put it in the window, on the beer mat, on the back of the receipt or on the van. The mechanic is the same: something worth stopping for, one square, and a page that knows who turned up.
The café code and the poster code both land in the same place as the enquiries, the bookings and the receipts: one record, one customer, one history. A separate feedback app gives you a fifth login and a spreadsheet nobody opens.