The commercial real estate (CRE) industry is undergoing a seismic shift. The traditional, transactional model—focused on leasing space and collecting rent—is no longer enough to meet tenant expectations or deliver sustainable returns. A new generation of landlords is emerging with a radically different mindset: one that treats real estate like a service platform, tenants like long-term customers, and experience as a competitive advantage.
This article outlines the key differences between Legacy CRE Organizations (“Transactional Landlords”) and Experiential CRE Organizations—and explores how leading platforms are rethinking strategy, product, org structure, and technology to close the Experience Gap.
From Transaction to Experience: A Shift in Operating Philosophy
| Legacy CRE Organizations | Experiential CRE Organizations |
| Tenants are rent payers | Tenants are customers and partners |
| Leasing is the end goal | Leasing is the start of the relationship |
| Service is reactive | Service is proactive and hospitality-driven |
| Amenities are fixed, generic | Experiences are curated, personalized, and evolving |
| Tech tools are disconnected and underutilized | Unified platforms power identity, analytics, and engagement |
| Operations are siloed | Teams are aligned around shared outcomes and tenant health |
| Portfolio strategy is asset-by-asset | Portfolio is run as a platform with consistent standards |
| Software is a cost center | Software is core infrastructure |
What Experiential CRE Organizations Are Doing Differently
1. Branded Product Lines Across the Portfolio
Experiential landlords standardize flexible workspaces, conferencing solutions, and amenity programs under branded product lines. These offerings:
- Create consistent, scalable experience across buildings and markets
- Give tenants optionality without friction
- Align CRE offerings with enterprise workplace strategies
2. Evolving Org Structure: The Rise of Experience Teams
Rather than relying solely on property managers, Experiential Orgs invest in specialized teams:
- Customer Experience Managers: Own onboarding, day-to-day service, and event programming
- Tenant Success Managers: Track satisfaction, manage engagement plans, and lead regular check-ins
- Retention Teams: Measure tenant health and intervene before risk turns into vacancy
These roles are modeled more after SaaS companies and hospitality groups than traditional CRE.
3. Tenant-Centered Discovery & Service
Experiential landlords seek to understand the business objectives of their tenants before move-in:
- Is the space for customer engagement?
- Collaboration?
- Talent attraction?
- Specialty R&D or lab use?
They use this context to tailor space design, service offerings, and programming—and they revisit these needs through quarterly or biannual business reviews.
4. Building-Wide, Hospitality-Like Support
Legacy landlords often restrict communication to a single tenant contact and treat service as work-order management. Experiential Orgs:
- Provide in-app or real-time support to all users (not just decision-makers)
- Answer questions, resolve issues, and coordinate requests across services
- Treat every interaction as an opportunity to build loyalty
5. Technology as Infrastructure
Experiential organizations aren’t just adopting point solutions—they are building unified platforms for their portfolios from the ground up.
- A structured and centralized data layer (the Digital Grid) serves as the foundation, housing standardized CRE data across assets, users, and systems. This enables true portfolio intelligence and AI readiness.
- A purpose-built CRM for CRE manages every tenant, user, and vendor relationship with embedded logic for identity, access, permissions, and leasing context (PAIR).
- Modular product suites span every operational function—Marketing & Leasing, Property & Experience Management (PXM), Intelligence, Smart Building—and are designed for cross-team collaboration.
- Digital applications extend platform access to every building persona: tenants, end users, vendors, and visitors—all with a frictionless user experience.
Together, this architecture allows landlords to orchestrate every aspect of experience—from access to engagement to analytics—across every asset, team, and tenant relationship.
Customer-Centric Assets That Power the Model
While branded product lines, services, org structures, and technology vary, every experiential CRE organization shares one essential trait: customer centricity. They understand their tenants as deeply as a SaaS company understands its users—and design accordingly.
Here are four foundational assets to begin your transformation into an Experiential Platform:
- Ideal Tenant Profile Template
Define the kinds of companies your properties best serve based on sector, scale, needs, and business model. - User Persona Template
Map the end users of the space—executives, coordinators, remote workers, guests—and build for their needs. - Tenant Journey Template
Visualize the full lifecycle from pre-lease discovery to renewal, identifying key touchpoints and moments that matter. - Tenant Success & Health Tracker
Monitor engagement, satisfaction, support activity, and renewal risk—so you can proactively retain, not just reactively respond.
Real Estate Experience (REX): Your System for Transformation
The shift toward experience-led real estate demands more than new tools or amenities—it requires a fundamentally new operating model. While strategies may differ, the most successful landlords are united by one core truth: they’ve built systems around the tenant, not just the lease.
REX is the framework that brings that system to life.
In our next post, we’ll introduce the Real Estate Experience (REX) methodology—a scalable, tech-enabled approach to transforming CRE portfolios into experience-first platforms.
