Using other businesses’ NZBNs

Using other businesses’ NZBNs has real, practical uses in your business.

It’s easier to pay the bills

Knowing your suppliers’ NZBNs means processing and paying their accounts becomes faster and easier, as you’ll have all their core business information at your fingertips. Equally, if they have your NZBN it will ensure any eInvoice they send reaches you through the eInvoicing network, enabling faster processing and payment of their eInvoices.

eInvoicing is the exchange of invoice information directly between financial systems such as Xero or MYOB, rather than using PDFs, emails or post.

Find out more at eInvoicing.govt.nz(external link)

Reliable delivery, every time

Integrating customers’ NZBNs into your business will help make sure your goods are delivered to the right place. You’ll know this because you can see their physical address on the NZBN Register, and if you have them on your watchlist, you’ll get an alert when any of their details change.

Jane runs a flower shop. Her biggest customer is a financial services company who have a large monthly order. When they moved buildings to new premises, it happened quickly, but because her customer updated their details on the NZBN Register, Jane knew their new delivery address immediately, as she had set up a watchlist on the NZBN website to alert her to any change in her customers’ details. Jane’s supply of fresh flowers to her biggest customer continued seamlessly at their new address.

If yours is a larger business, integrate the NZBN into your whole supply chain. That way using other businesses’ NZBNs will mean your logistics and warehousing operations are working with customer information that you know is accurate.

Grow your business

Using other businesses’ NZBNs helps you get a clearer picture of your customers and helps you identify new business opportunities. Can you supply new products or services that fill a niche or improve customer experience?

Think about your own business. Could you use your customer’s NZBN as an identifier to link together their sales history, financial information or how they obtain or use your services? How could that help you manage your work relationships better, or enhance the services you provide, so you can do more business together?

Superior customer service

Use the NZBN to link other different types of customer data. For example, use the NZBN as an identifier to link together sales, delivery and customer complaints information.

You’ll see how to improve your supply chain and customer experience, so your timely service/product becomes even more relevant for them. If you have a customer relationship management system (CRM) you can integrate what you learn into it, to provide even better service and proactively anticipate their needs.

Here’s how BNZ used the NZBN to improve their customer experience for new business customers joining the bank.

Read the transcript

Video transcript

Visual

Fade in to a teal coloured screen with the words “How BNZ is using the NZBN to enhance customer experience”.

A close up of a man sitting on a blue high backed sofa in an office setting. His name and title appear on screen: James Beech, BNZ National Manager – Partner Insight and Innovation. The next shot shows a large brochure stand with the word ‘information’ above it, with rows of orange, blue and turquoise brochures against a background wall print of the ocean. Then the shot changes to a TV screen with a man on it, who is looking at his phone, on the same printed wall background and then slowly pans to a tablet device sitting on the bench in front of the same wall.

Audio

BNZ is planning to use the New Zealand business number to understand New Zealand businesses the landscape of New Zealand companies, charities, public sector, small business and potential customers.

Visual

The shot of the TV screen and tablet continue and then changes to a close up of a woman walking away from an ATM machine, located inside a bank. A man, standing with his back toward her, walks past and out of shot. Next, there’s a close up of James sitting in the same high backed, blue sofa. As he speaks, words appear on screen which read: “Understand how your customers are changing and growing”.

Audio

I think it's gonna give us a reference point to understand each entity there's a single point or a single customer view and also understand how the businesses are changing and how they're growing or the types of needs and how the bank can help them with products and services.

Visual

The camera pans along a row of blue BNZ brochures. It then cuts back to a close up of James sitting on the blue sofa again. The words “use the NZBN to get the information right the first time” appear on the screen next to James.

Audio

The efficiencies it's gonna save us is around the duplicates and many records of the same thing. The BNZ sees the opportunity with onboarding of businesses using the NZBN to uniquely identify each entity and specifically getting the information right the first time.

Visual

The camera pans across the wall, showing a TV screen and a tablet on the shelf below. The wall has a printed ocean background. Next, you see a wide shot of the inside of the bank, with a view of the automatic glass doors at the front of the store. A woman is walking towards the doors from outside. The next shot is a close up of James again, sitting on the blue high backed sofa.

Audio

By getting regular updates from the NZBN information source we can see opportunities to understand complexity of business, small businesses that are growing, partnerships, sole traders also changes in charities and public sector information.

Visual

James is sitting on the high backed blue sofa. Then the words “innovative solutions to understand customer journeys” appear on screen next to James. The words disappear and he continues to talk.

Audio

We believe we can use innovative solutions to understand customer’s journey and where they need to go and also be able to benchmark them against other of their peers. The BNZ sees NZBN as part of the building block so I think of it like a foundation in the house that the concrete base layer is the NZBN data source and everything we build on that for our customers and for the BNZ, is building on that source.

Visual

A customer comes into the bank and walks up to the ATM machine. She puts her card into the machine. There are other customers in the background also using the bank’s services and standing in line for the tellers. The visual cuts to a teal background with a cartoon image of three people sitting at a circular desk with a laptop and papers on it. A heading appears, reading: “Advice for other businesses”. Three orange text boxes appear, reading “run a parallel process”, “understand legacy systems” and “know the type of information coming in”.

Audio

Advice that I would have for other businesses wanting to use the NZBN, is to run a parallel process and then look to switch your legacy system off to also understand your legacy systems and how they digest information and thirdly to understand the type of information that's coming in and have developers who can handle their information.

Visual

The next shot is of a woman standing inside the bank. She’s holding and reading a brochure, while positioned in front of a wall of brochures. The visual then cuts back to a close up of James sitting on the blue high backed sofa again.

Audio

We think our customers win from this because the NZBN provides the source of information that we can rely on that understands our customers, provides a reference point, is trust reliable and the private and public sector can work together.

Visual

The woman who was seen earlier using the ATM appears inside the bank again, withdrawing cash from the machine. The words “the credibility and security of the NZBN information is very important to banks and other professional services” appear on screen next to her and she turns around and walks away towards the glass automatic exit doors. The shot cuts back to James again, sitting back on the blue sofa.

Audio

The credibility and the security of this information is very important to the banks and also to other professional services. I would recommend many businesses to go down this path, especially large organisations who really want to get the housekeeping and infrastructure in order.

Visual

The image fades out and the words ‘Find out how the NZBN can become an asset for your business at nzbn.govt.nz” appear in teal writing on a grey screen.

Learn more about how other organisations are using the NZBN, and how you can use your NZBN in your own business.

Get your contacts using their NZBN

The NZBN works best when everyone uses it, so encourage your customers and suppliers to get and use their NZBN, and keep their information up-to-date so it’s easy to continue to do business together.

Find out more about the free NZBN services that can help your business

There are some great services that help you get the most out of your NZBN by making it easier to connect and transact with others.

Get an NZBN

Search for an NZBN