Exhibition Scanner App Guide
Install, configure, and train your whole team on the HelloGrowthCRM badge scanner in under 15 minutes. Works on any Android phone.
How teams prepare before venue day
Scanner success usually depends less on the app itself and more on whether the team arrives prepared. Devices should already be logged in, events should already be created, and reps should already know what short qualification questions they need to ask immediately after each scan.
A short rehearsal before the exhibition prevents the most common issues: delayed sync, bad scan angles, missing event tags, and inconsistent note capture across booth staff. That preparation step is what turns mobile scanning from a demo feature into a reliable field workflow.
Step-by-step setup
- 01
Download the app
Search for "HelloGrowthCRM" on Google Play or click the badge below. Install on all team Android phones before the event.
- 02
Log in and select workspace
Use your existing HelloGrowthCRM credentials. If you're a team member, your admin will have invited you — check your email.
- 03
Open Exhibitions
Tap the grid icon → Exhibitions. Select your event from the list (your admin creates events on desktop before the show).
- 04
Tap 'Scan Badge'
Point your camera at any QR badge, NFC badge, or business card. Hold steady for 1–2 seconds. The contact populates automatically.
- 05
Answer scan questions (optional)
If your admin configured scan questions (e.g. interest level, product discussed), answer them before saving. Takes 10–15 seconds.
- 06
Done — lead is in CRM
The contact appears immediately in your exhibition lead list and in the main CRM pipeline with the event tag.
Device requirements
| OS | Android 8.0+ (Oreo) |
| Camera | 8MP or higher (auto-focus required for QR) |
| NFC | Optional — enables NFC badge tap mode |
| Storage | ~45MB install size |
| Connectivity | Works offline — sync on reconnect |
| Battery | Background GPS disabled to preserve battery |
Battery tip: Keep the screen brightness at 50% and close other apps during heavy scanning days to maximise battery life.
Offline mode: Enable before entering the venue. All scans queue locally and sync automatically when you reconnect — no manual intervention needed.
Trainer tips — for team leads
Run a 15-minute pre-event briefing using these talking points.
- 1
Do a practice scan session 1 day before the event using a printed test QR code.
- 2
Enable 'Do Not Disturb — Exhibition Mode' in the app to suppress non-critical notifications during the show.
- 3
Assign one team lead to monitor the live exhibition dashboard and flag leads for immediate follow-up.
- 4
Turn on 'Airplane Mode + Wi-Fi Only' in venues with poor signal — QR scanning doesn't need cellular.
- 5
Add a custom greeting question ('Interest level: Hot / Warm / Cold') so reps qualify during the scan.
- 6
Review synced leads together at end of each show day — assign follow-up tasks before leaving the venue.
Troubleshooting on the show floor
Scans not appearing in the CRM? Nine times out of ten the device is offline and the queue simply has not synced. Check the sync badge in the app header — queued scans upload automatically the moment the phone reconnects. If a specific scan is missing, search the exhibition lead list by the scan time rather than the name, since OCR name fields can differ slightly from what the rep remembers.
QR codes refusing to read? Glossy badges under harsh hall lighting cause glare. Tilt the badge ten degrees away from overhead lights, or switch to manual entry — auto-complete pulls existing contacts from your database so typing a few characters is usually enough. For NFC-enabled events, tap mode avoids the camera entirely.
A rep logged into the wrong event? Leads carry an event tag, so an admin can bulk-reassign the tag from desktop in a couple of minutes. Nothing is lost — the scan timestamp, owner, and notes stay intact. This is also why creating events before the show, with obvious names, is worth the five minutes it takes.
Running the scanner at an Indian trade fair
Indian exhibition halls test a scanner in ways a demo never does: crowded aisles, glossy badges under harsh lighting, mobile networks that collapse under fifty thousand visitors, and organisers whose badges carry no QR code at all. The app is built around those conditions. Offline mode queues up to 2,000 scans locally, card OCR covers the business-card-first culture of Indian B2B, and manual entry with auto-complete handles the visitor who has neither badge nor card but is happy to dictate a phone number.
A typical booth day looks like this. The team arrives with phones charged and the event already active. Through the day, each rep scans their own conversations — badge, card, or standee QR for walk-ins — and answers the two or three scan-form questions that separate a genuine buyer from a brochure collector. At close, the team lead opens the live lead list in the evening huddle: hot leads get owners and same-evening thank-yous, warm leads enter the post-show sequence, and the day is done without a single spreadsheet. After the final day, the discipline that matters is the 48-hour window — first personal follow-up to every hot lead within two days of the scan, while the conversation is still fresh in the visitor's mind.
Two small preparations pay for themselves many times over. First, print your standee QR large and place it at counter height, not on the table — walk-ins scan it themselves while waiting for a rep to free up, which means the queue at a busy booth captures itself. Second, agree the scan-form answers as a team before day one: what “hot” means, which product names to use, what counts as a timeline. Consistent answers are what make the end-of-day lead list sortable and the post-show sequences targetable; four reps with four private definitions of “interested” produce a pile that still needs manual triage. Fifteen minutes of agreement before the fair saves hours of cleanup after it.
Why a CRM-native scanner beats a standalone app
Standalone badge-scanner apps produce a spreadsheet at the end of the show. Someone then has to import that spreadsheet, map columns, dedupe against existing contacts, and assign owners — and in many teams that job happens a week later, after the prospects have already met your competitors. A scanner that writes directly into your CRM removes the entire import step: the lead exists, tagged and owned, the second it is scanned.
It also changes what happens during the event. Because scanned leads land in the live pipeline, a team lead back at the office can watch leads arrive, flag hot ones, and have follow-up sequences or a same-day call queued in the built-in dialer before the booth closes. Combined with exhibition analytics, the same scans that feed follow-up also feed next year's budget decision — one capture, three jobs done.
Scanner FAQ
- Is there an iOS app?
- The iOS App Store version is coming soon. In the meantime, iOS users can scan using the mobile web version at app.hellogrowthcrm.com — QR and manual entry work, NFC is not supported in the browser.
- How long does offline storage last?
- Up to 2,000 scans can be stored offline before a sync is required. This covers most multi-day trade shows.
- What happens if two reps scan the same badge?
- The system deduplicates by email. The second scan adds an activity note 'Re-scanned by [rep]' rather than creating a duplicate contact.
- Can reps use the app without a HelloGrowthCRM account?
- No — each rep needs a team member seat. Contact your admin to invite additional team members before the event.
- Is there a tablet version?
- Yes — the Android tablet version works identically. Larger screen makes review and custom questions easier for booth staff.
- How much does the scanner cost?
- The scanner is part of HelloGrowthCRM, not a separate purchase. The free plan covers 1 user and 200 leads — enough to trial it at a small event — and paid plans are $12 per user per month ($10 on annual billing, ₹899 in India) with exhibition features included.
- What should we do with scans after the show?
- Assign every scanned lead an owner and a first follow-up task before leaving the venue, then let email or WhatsApp sequences carry the longer nurture. Leads from the scanner land in the same pipeline as the rest of your CRM, so nothing needs to be exported or re-imported.
- Does the scanner cope with paper badges at Indian trade fairs?
- Yes. Where the organiser prints plain paper badges without a QR code — still common at Indian fairs — reps switch to business card OCR or manual entry with auto-complete. All modes tag the lead to the active event, so the capture method does not affect follow-up or reporting.
- How many phones do we need for a typical booth?
- One logged-in phone per rep working the booth. Scans from every device merge into the same event with deduplication by email, so a four-person booth runs four phones without coordination overhead.
- Can the booth team see how the day is going while the fair is on?
- Yes. The Leads and Insights tabs show live totals, hot/warm/cold splits, and per-rep scan counts. Many teams review these numbers in a short end-of-day huddle to assign owners and queue evening follow-ups.
- How soon after scanning can a lead receive a follow-up?
- As soon as the scan syncs. Teams commonly send a same-evening thank-you and a next-morning WhatsApp referencing the product discussed, keeping the first personal touch inside the 48-hour window when trade fair conversations are still warm.
Ready to scan your next exhibition?
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