Qrion Powers Your Mobile Site With QR Codes and Social Coupons

Qrion is a made-in-Singapore platform for start-ups and small companies to create mobile sites using its WYSIWYG drag-and-drop creator. We’ve heard of such solutions before, but Qrion – as its name suggests – does more by making every mobile page accessible through the scanning of Quick Response (QR) codes.

Qrion founder, Lynette Ong, hopes to make QR codes accessible to small companies. She told us that there is too much skepticism about the use of QR codes and hopes to change that mindset. As a smartphone user who has encountered those odd black-and-white patterns, I confess I’m one of them.

She also believes that QR codes can be effective in a marketing mix if used properly. Things are improving though, as she witnesses more large companies starting to embrace QR codes at bus stops and newspaper ads. But that got her wondering why QR codes can’t be adopted by small companies too. Motivated by that thought, Lynette created Qrion to help companies with a limited budget to make their websites accessible through QR codes.

Inside the Qrion 'Mobile Site Creator' and 'QR Code Manager' interface.

Besides QR, Qrion also offers a social coupon module that helps users create their own (you guessed it!) social coupon. The rewards can only be unlocked if the deal is shared with the customer’s network, thus helping businesses to generate more sales leads. Besides that, Qrion also offers other features like media widgets, audio, a product catalog, and an event calendar to help improve your mobile site.

QR codes as a scan-and-go concept sound good when you read it. But in reality it isn’t quite so. As a consumer, I find it a pain to fire-up my QR reader app before I can actually access the info. The QR reader is, ironically, hindering adoption rate. How cool would it be if all QR codes were recognizable and could be decoded by any smartphone camera with a network connection. If that were possible, I would probably use that. For the fun of it, I also sent Lynette my thoughts about QR codes. She agrees with me but also says that compelling content (not gimmicks) will still enjoy high QR code usage levels. Here’s what she said in full:

If the information is truly helpful to customers (and not further marketing gimmicks), I believe they will take the effort to scan the code. The information can be post-sales advice (eg. an instruction manual in video format for people who hate to read instruction manuals), tips to help in making purchasing decisions (eg. a peer-review forum page for electronic products), or simply making learning fun (eg. QR codes in children’s story books for animated story telling). It’s really up to creativity. At the end of day, the information should serve to enhance customer experience and gain customer loyalty.