From experience to relevance

I recently watched my 20-year-old children interact with different platforms and sites throughout the same week. They bought a product from their cell phone, managed a digital subscription, booked an activity and made a query through a customer service channel.

An inevitable question arose... how do they make the decision? The answer was forceful: “the one who understands what I want and proposes it to me with more accuracy and speed.”

I set out to do the exercise of looking at an interaction with a particular site. They didn't have the patience to repeat information, navigate multiple steps, or adapt to the site's logic. They expected exactly the opposite: that the proposal would adapt to them.

It inevitably led me to reflect. The most interesting thing is that this expectation is no longer limited to one generation.

What initially seemed like behavior typical of young people accustomed to digital platforms is, in reality, a much more profound transformation. Eight in ten consumers already prefer companies that offer personalized experiences, and 70% consider it important for organizations to know their history and preferences. It is not a generational trend. It's the new standard. Personalization stopped being a differential and became a basic expectation.

However, there is a significant gap between what companies believe they offer and what customers really perceive. Various research shows that less than half of consumers believe that organizations adequately understand their needs and expectations.

For years we have been talking about customer experience.

Organizations invested in improving processes, digitizing interactions, developing new channels and reducing friction. And they did it because they understood something fundamental: customers no longer compare and buy only products or services, they buy experiences.

However, something is changing again.

Experience was no longer the main differential. Today consumers expect something more.

They hope to be understood.

They expect organizations to know their preferences, remember their previous interactions, and anticipate what they need before they ask for it.

The new expectation is no longer just having a good experience. It is having an experience designed for each one.

Paradoxically, consumers increasingly value personalized experiences, but not necessarily those they perceive as excessively automated. Technology can enhance relevance, but there remains a deeply human expectation: to feel understood.

In other words, we are witnessing the transition from the experience economy to the relevance economy.

And here appears one of the main challenges for organizations. The larger an organization grows, the more difficult it is for it to behave as if it knows its customers. Scale has historically been the enemy of personalization. Today, for the first time, you have the tools to stop being one. But having the tools is not the same as knowing how to use them.

It requires developing a new organizational capacity: the ability to transform data into knowledge and knowledge into action. The great challenge today is to integrate data, commercial capabilities and business strategy into the same vision. The organizations that manage to transform information into knowledge, taking full advantage of the possibilities of advanced analytics and artificial intelligence, and convert that knowledge into strategic action, will be the ones that truly differentiate themselves.

The real challenge is to develop the ability to integrate data, commercial capabilities and business strategy into the same vision. The organizations that manage to transform information into a deep understanding of their customers and convert that understanding into strategic action will be the ones that truly differentiate themselves.

It's not just about selling more. It's about generating business intelligence, building and managing lasting relationships and creating sustainable value.

Because when experience stops being a differential and becomes an expectation, the competitive advantage changes its place. It is no longer about who knows the most clients, but rather about who is capable of understanding each one better and acting accordingly.

The consumer is no longer looking only for products, services or experiences. Look for organizations that understand it. And in a world where relevance is the new differential, that capacity will be what makes the difference.

Sources

The 2026 State of Customer Experience Report – Medallia March 2026

Forrester’s 2025 Global Customer Experience Index Rankings

State of Customer Service and CX Study 2024 (Forbes, April 2024 “The personalized customer experience: Consumers want you to know them).

Qualtrics, Personalized Customer Experience, 2024.