Finance lessons for CX.
This article is a part of our Leadership Series — reflections on inspiration, influence, and the choices that shape meaningful achievement.
“Every great business is built on understanding how the business works.” — Sam Walton
The Setting Was Glamorous
Early in my career — long before training rooms, Contact Centers, or CX frameworks — I worked in finance in Beverly Hills.
The setting was glamorous, but the job wasn’t. It was intense.
And it gave me one of the most important lessons I’ve carried into all my Customer Experience work.
Here’s the story.
The Beverly Hills Office
The office I worked in was across the street from Neiman Marcus, with the Beverly Wilshire Hotel and Rodeo Drive just a short walk away.
Inside, we were a small team: the COO, the Controller (my boss), two Management Accountants (I was one), and one Secretary.
We worked for a Swiss family with private holdings across the US — real estate, timberlands in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, financial institutions, and more.
Because we were such a small team, the work went way beyond preparing financial statements.
One week I was in Michigan visiting lumber mills, interviewing managers, and writing assessments.
Another week I was in Nashville evaluating a potential acquisition.
We worked across time zones, and I often slept overnight in the office.
I wasn’t just “doing the numbers.”
I was expected to understand how the family’s businesses actually ran — and speak about them in those terms with my boss and the COO.
I’m grateful I began my career in Finance — and here’s more of that story
The Real Education
Looking back, that job in Beverly Hills gave me a crash course in business that has shaped my work ever since.
I learned how COOs and owners think — what they look at, what they worry about, and what moves the needle for them.
In practice, this meant learning to see the business the way they did.
Revenue. Cost. Risk. Margin. Operational performance. People performance.
I also learned how to talk to different kinds of people — mill operators, finance specialists, lawyers, even music company executives.
The Lesson for CX
Whenever someone in CX says, “We need to show business impact,” I nod immediately. Because CX doesn’t matter unless it matters to the business.
When CX teams only talk about survey scores, sentiment, and NPS, they shouldn’t be surprised when the rest of the organization tunes out.
I call this behavior being the CX Police.
The CX Police pull people over and lecture them — whether it’s about not being customer-centric enough or failing to put CX at “the heart of everything they do.”
The CX Police approach still feels right to some CX people — perhaps they see that as their job to be done — but it backfires.
You do far better — in any job role — when you choose to listen first and understand what matters to the person in front of you.
Whether that’s a mill operator, a finance specialist, or a music executive. Because once you understand what matters to them, you can see where your CX expertise can help.
That’s the lesson I learned in Beverly Hills — long before I ever taught Customer Experience.
You can be Customer-centric and business-oriented, they aren’t mutually exclusive.
What You Can Do on Monday
Here’s a simple place to start:
Pick one CX metric and link it to a business term.
For example:
- Show how reducing repeat contacts reduces cost.
- Show how improving onboarding reduces churn.
- Show how better quality monitoring reduces risk.
- Show how a robust CX vision aligns decision-making across departments.
You don’t need a full financial model.
You just need to show the line of sight between experience and the business.
Thank You for Reading
I regularly share stories, strategies, and insights from our work across Contact Centers, Customer Service, and Customer Experience. If this resonates, I’d love to stay connected.
You can drop me a line anytime, or subscribe on our site.
Daniel Ord
[email protected]
www.omnitouchinternational.com
Banner Image: Colton Sturgeon on Unsplash
