Claiming a listing on FindAKiwi costs nothing. It takes about five minutes if you have your NZBN handy, and most claims get a decision within two working days. That last part surprises people, because most “free” business tools quietly want a credit card at step three. This one doesn’t.
Here’s why a claim exists in the first place. FindAKiwi’s directory includes businesses that never signed up themselves, built from public business information so that a search for “plumber, Matamata” or “accountant, Nelson” actually returns something. If your business is one of those, the listing is live whether you’ve seen it or not. Claiming it is how you take it back: correct the details, add real photos, and answer the messages and reviews that show up against your name.
What the claim form actually asks for
Four things, and none of them are optional window dressing:
- Your NZBN, the 13 digit New Zealand Business Number. If you don’t know yours off by heart, nzbn.govt.nz will find it in about ten seconds.
- A business phone number.
- A business email address, ideally one on your own domain rather than a personal Gmail. It’s not a hard requirement, but it does make the review faster.
- A supporting document if you have one to hand: an NZBN certificate, a recent utility bill, letterhead. Optional, but it usually cuts the review time down.
You’ll also get an optional notes field. Use it. “I’m the owner, ph me on the mobile number above if you need anything” is more useful to whoever’s reviewing the claim than a blank box.
What happens after you submit
Every claim gets checked against the NZBN register by hand before it’s approved. That’s a deliberate choice. It would be faster to auto-approve anything with a plausible-looking phone number, and plenty of directories do exactly that. The trade-off is obvious: a directory where anyone can claim anyone’s business isn’t worth much to the people searching it, and it’s actively bad for the business that gets claimed out from under them. So the moderation step stays, even though it means your listing doesn’t update the second you hit submit.
If it’s approved, you get full control: edit the description, upload photos, set opening hours, and reply to messages and reviews as yourself instead of as a placeholder record. If something doesn’t match (the NZBN belongs to a different trading name, say), you’ll hear back about what’s needed rather than a flat no.
The one thing worth doing before you claim
Check the listing first. Search your business name on FindAKiwi and read what’s actually there. Some of these imported listings are thin: a name, an address, maybe a phone number and nothing else. If that’s yours, claiming it and leaving it as-is barely moves the needle. The value is in what you add afterwards: real photos instead of a placeholder, a description in your own words instead of a category label, and hours that are actually current. A claimed listing with no updates isn’t much better than an unclaimed one.
One limitation worth knowing about upfront: claiming doesn’t retroactively generate reviews or history. It hands you the keys to a listing that starts, for most purposes, from scratch. If your business has been trading for fifteen years, that fifteen years doesn’t show up automatically. You’ll need to ask past customers directly if you want that reflected.
If you’d rather not deal with any of it, that’s a fair call too. Nobody’s obligated to manage a directory listing. But if a customer’s first impression of your business is a bare, unclaimed record with wrong hours, that’s not neutral. It’s a small, free fix. Search your business name at findakiwi.co.nz and see what’s there.
Comments