Stratten - QR codes kill kittens: how to alienate customers, dishearten employees, and drive your business into the ground

Cover image: front: iStockphoto/RyanJLane; back: iStockphoto/EEI_Tony

Cover design: Wiley

Copyright 2014 by Scott Stratten. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

All kitten images are copyrighted images from iStockphoto and used with permission.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Stratten, Scott

QR Codes Kill Kittens: How to Alienate Customers, Dishearten Employees, and Drive Your Business into the Ground/Scott Stratten.

pages cm.

ISBN: 978-1-118-73275-5 (cloth); ISBN: 978-1-118-78687-1 (ebk);

ISBN: 978-1-118-78690-1 (ebk)

1.QR codes. 2.Management. 3.Marketing. 4.Information technology

Management. I. Title.

HF5416.S77 2014

658dc23

2013022153

Introduction

Friends, followers, countrymen, lend me your ears.

I come to praise QR codes, not to bury them.

QR codes are full of potential. The thing is, we're breaking thembefore we even get a chance to figure out just how awesome they can be.

Every time you use a QR code for your business because you can, and not because you should, whether your market wants them or not, a kitten diesa sweet, innocent kitten.

QR codes are the perfect example of a bright and shiny business tool. We see them, and they are quite simply too exciting to ignore.

In case you've picked up this book without knowing what a QR code is, let me run it down for you. A QR code is a kind of bar code ( QR stands for quick response). To read them, you need to have a smartphone and download a QR codereading app. Once on your phone, the app will allow you to, in theory, scan the code. If the app works, the code was made correctly, and if you are able to hold your phone steadily over the code for long enough, you will be taken to a website, download link, or destination that is mobile-friendly and therefore easily readable on your phone.

Mobile technology at its best, right?

Wrong.

All of a sudden QR codes are everywhere. We just can't help ourselves. We see QR codes in magazines and on billboards, on bus stops, and on products themselves.

The truth is, QR codes don't usually work. We are using QR codes to show that we're using QR codes.

We ignore the things we should be doing in our businesses to create and place them. We ignore fixing problems. We put aside improving our products, listening to our customers, and cleaning up the tools we are already using. We ignore basic issues of functionality. We yell, Squirrel! and run after them.

QR codes take up our valuable time, and space, and let us ignore what we should be fixing and focusing on in business. QR codes are a selfish Look at me and how tech savvy I am marketing tool. More often than not, they are just another hoop we make our would-be customers jump through.

A lot of business books out there are going to tell you what you should be doing. Well, this one is a little different.

QR codes alienate customers, dishearten employees, and drive your business into the ground, not to mention kill kittens.

I am going to show you that QR codes represent what's wrong with business today, for four different reasons:

The book is laid out using these four reasons as chapter headings. QR code misuse sets the tone for each of the four sections, and we expand on each reason using examples from throughout business.

He who hath brought many QR codes home to clients, whose return on investment needs they do not fulfill, I speak to you.

Let's do this.

Note

Apologies to Mr. Shakespeare.

Chapter 1

They Don't Work