Case Study: Walgreens achieves life-saving rapid notifications during Ferguson unrest with xMatters

Walgreens - Customer Case Study

Walgreens, America’s largest drugstore chain with over 8,200 stores, needed a faster way to reach store managers and support staff during sudden civil unrest after manual alerts proved too slow during events like the 2012 NATO protests. When violent protests broke out in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, the company faced the urgent challenge of notifying high‑risk districts and stores so employees and customers could evacuate safely.

Walgreens implemented xMatters’ automated notification platform to pinpoint and instantly contact the right teams, delivering and verifying alerts to more than 200 people so stores could close or evacuate immediately. The rapid, confirmed communications minimized response time, helped keep staff and customers safe (no employees were injured), and limited damage to a single heavily affected store while enabling coordinated recovery communications.

Walgreens

Richard Dodd

Director of Business Continuity and Safety