Operating a small enterprise at present will not be a simple factor to do. Along with offering nice merchandise and/or providers at aggressive costs, you additionally must navigate fashionable advertising and marketing and buyer engagement methods. That requires a strong plan in your on-line presence — significantly on Google Maps. An enormous proportion of consumers discover native companies by means of Google Maps and so you must take advantage of it, with evaluations being crucial. Nonetheless, getting these evaluations is tough in its personal proper, which is why Julius Curt developed this Evaluation/GIF show for small companies.
The aim of this system is to encourage clients to depart evaluations for the enterprise on Google, making the enterprise stand out extra to potential new clients looking on Google Maps. It does that by first grabbing the eye of consumers already inside with enjoyable GIFs, then giving them a possibility to decide on a GIF of their very own to show after leaving a evaluate. It’s a enjoyable and novel option to join with clients whereas benefiting the enterprise.
The {hardware} to make that occur is definitely fairly minimal. It consists of a pc monitor and a Raspberry Pi 4 Mannequin B, paired with the suitable energy provides. A laser-cut acrylic panel covers many of the monitor’s display as a way to draw consideration to the vital (uncovered) parts: the enterprise title/brand, the GIFs, and the QR code with directions to be used. The acrylic panel in all probability isn’t strictly needed, but it surely does make the entire thing look nicer.
That QR code is vital, as a result of the whole system depends on Google Maps and clients want a simple option to depart a evaluate for the right enterprise. After they scan the QR code, their smartphone takes them to the Google web page to depart a evaluate. As soon as the system detects a brand new evaluate (by means of the Google Maps API), it replaces the oldest of the three GIFs with a brand new QR code. The shopper can then scan that to decide on a brand new GIF primarily based on a range supplied by Giphy’s API. Giphy has an enormous library of GIFs, so the client may have lots to select from.
Curt programmed that performance with the assistance of ChatGPT. The system makes use of FastAPI on the backend with a PostgreSQL database, and Javascript with CSS for the frontend interface.
The ingenuity right here is spectacular. This can be a very inexpensive option to encourage clients to depart evaluations with out annoying them, which is sure to be good for enterprise.