For many businesses and industries, COVID-19 has made customer and employee well-being a priority. Witness Michelin-starred restaurants pivoting to making food for healthcare workers and carry out, or airlines voluntarily forgoing middle-seat ticket revenue.

Organizations at the forefront of customer experience—USAA, Zoom, Netflix, and Apple, for instance—excel at putting the customer at the center of everything they do. Even a 5% increase in customer retention can lead to significantly greater profits, studies by Bain & Company and Harvard Business School show. Customer experience leaders in Watermark’s new Customer Experience ROI study outperformed competitors and reported returns 45 points higher than the S&P 500 Index.

Employees of customer-centric companies also feel and do better, studies show, than their counterparts at other organizations.