News
Austin hired to be CBX's thought leader in experiential retail
Andy Austin, the thought leader who directed the customer experience at AT&T’s high-touch retail stores nationwide, will head CBX’s Experience Technology Group.
May 28, 2015
Andy Austin, who oversaw groundbreaking tech rollouts at 2,200 AT&T stores nationwide, has joined brand agency CBX as its new group director of Experience Technology, according to a company release.
“Andy is a veteran of the wireless and consumer electronics industries who has spent more than a decade at the creative intersection of retail and technology,” Gregg S. Lipman, CEO/Managing Partner, CBX, said in a statement. “While Andy is a tech insider, this is about more than adding technical expertise. As both Andy and CBX see it, in the branding context, technology is useful only insofar as it drives a broader strategy — namely, one that sparks meaningful conversations with and among consumers.”
Austin, whose client list as an independent consultant includes the likes of Audi, JCPenney and Ford, formerly helped AT&T pioneer customer-centric stores as the company’s Director of Retail Customer Experience for 10 years. The senior-level position involved rolling out a raft of smart, customer-facing technologies — including the first worldwide launch of the award-winning Microsoft Surface. Over the course of his 20-year career, Austin also held various sales and marketing positions for companies such as MCI/Worldcom, Verus Technology Solutions and Caesars Tahoe.
At CBX, Austin and his team of developers, designers and engineers will use technology to create more meaningful exchanges between brands and customers through human-centered experiences, according to the release. “These experiences will enable brands to invite conversations, drive engagement, and deliver value,” Austin said. “That is essential today, because attitudes are changing. Consumers are in charge of the buying process. They want to have conversations with brands and each other.”
The goal, Austin said in the release, is to create customer experiences that surprise and delight consumers to such an extent that they remember and strongly identify with the brand. “This is about things like emotion, eye contact and mirror neurons — the traits that make us human,” he said.
