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The International Council of Shopping Centers created a terrorist-awareness training program shortly after 9/11. At the time, there were no training programs in place for the shopping center industry.

“We hired George Washington University to develop a program and funded the work with $2 million,” said Malachy Kavanagh, ICSC spokesperson. “We created a 10-module course that is delivered over the Internet. You can learn at your own pace. If you work right through, it will take 14 to 15 hours.”

Shopping centers work to tighten security and develop response plans

The emergence of omnichannel commerce is dramatically changing the retail equation, both in how customers travel the path to purchase and how retailers anticipate and meet customer demand. Mike Webster, senior VP and general manager of Oracle Retail, offered Chain Store Age his perspective on how retailers must alter their approach to both systems and business processes to ensure they deliver a seamless experience across all customer touchpoints, one that both converts sales and builds long-term satisfaction and loyalty.   

The mobile channel by definition extends retailing to an almost limitless range of touchpoints, since mobile devices bring the store to wherever the customer goes. Yet current trends in mobile retailing center on tying disparate touchpoints closer together using mobile technology.

Ken Morris, principal, Boston Retail Partners, recently took the time to explain how real-time retailing and how the concept of “unified commerce” allows stores themselves to become networks for customer engagement.

What is real-time retailing, and how does it benefit retailers and their customers?

The only sure thing about disruption is that it will continue evolving at an increasingly rapid pace and in new and surprising directions. But for a last word, perhaps the industry should consider the following prediction from Nikki Baird, managing partner of RSR Research, on where disruption may be headed for 2014.

APPLEBEE’S GIVES CUSTOMERS MORE CONTROL OF DINING EXPERIENCE

Casual dining chain Applebee’s is looking to redefine and enhance its guest experience by placing tablets tableside. The company plans to deploy 100,000 devices — E la Carte Presto tablets, powered by Intel — chainwide by the end of 2014. It is installing the tablets on every table and in multiple bar positions at its more than 1,8000 U.S. restaurants.

Restaurants, retailers partner with STM Mobile Loyalty Program

Technology-enabled customer disruption is not strictly the province of retailers. Montreal’s public transportation authority, Société de transport de Montréal (STM), is in the midst of a successful pilot of a loyalty program that uses advanced geolocation and real-time mobile messaging to disrupt the public transportation customer experience. And in another sign of how traditional silos in the customer experience are falling, retailers are playing an active role. 

In The Pink drives data to stores

For upscale retailers, providing an intimate and responsive customer experience is even more critical than it is for more mainstream chains. In The Pink, a Falmouth, Mass.-based, seven-unit affiliate of specialty retailer Lilly Pulitzer, is disrupting both how customer service is delivered in its stores and how IT vendors deliver technology to retailers.

The convergence of a number of leading-edge technologies is launching a revolution in the customer experience. Mobile devices, social media, 24/7 connectivity and a blurring of the lines between formerly separate customer service “channels” have upended the rules of retail, forever disrupting the notion of business as usual. It’s a brave new world — and one that Chain Store Age will explore at its first-ever Customer Disruption event, May 7-9, 2014, at Sofitel Hotel in Redwood Shores, Calif., the Gateway to the Silicon Valley.