Altice USA has opened its first customer Experience Center in the New York Tri-State area, with an Optimum-branded store location at the Garden State Plaza Mall in Paramus, N.J., getting the honors.
Altice USA, which acquired Cablevision Systems in June 2016, said its second Experience Center will open in the coming months in the Westfield South Shore Mall in Bay Shore, Long Island.
Altice USA said the new stores are next-gen retail stores where customers can interact with Optimum-branded TV, broadband, WiFi and voice products, and purchase third-party merchandise.
The new store in Paramus features an “open floor design” that occupies 3,695 square feet. Among the demos and interactive display are those for Altice One, the company’s new all-in-one service hub/device, which runs on a new interface.
Also on show and for sale are smart home connected products from Nest, including connected thermostats, smoke and CO alarms and Nest cams. Altice USA and the Google-owned company announced a product and services partnership in late October.
RELATED: Altice USA Hawks Nest Smart Home Products
Altice USA is also using the store to sell Samsung TVs, tablets, home theatre equipment and accessories, and has set up an area for children’s gaming and television programming, as well as one dedicated to small business services.
It won't be surprising to see Altice USA use the new outlets to sell mobile services once a product launches that comes way of its "full" MVNO agreement with Sprint.
Update: Altice USA's traditional retail stores will continue to handle equipment exchanges and returns of equipment such as cable boxes, routers, remotes, and to handle bill payments and other questions.
“What an exciting and unique opportunity for consumers to come together in a community-centric environment at our Experience Centers to test drive current and future technologies, view educational product and online service demos, purchase products, plus have a little fun,” said Hakim Boubazine, Altice USA’s co-president and COO, said in a statement. “With our Experience Centers, we are changing the way we interact with our customers and the way they interact with us by providing a more personal, in-store experience that showcases the many ways we enable seamless connectivity.”
