Born out of the need for a new type of location-sharing service, Glympse was founded in 2008 by Microsoft veterans who vowed to eliminate friction as well as anxiety during product and service delivery experiences. Now, Chris Ruff, CEO and President of Glympse is carrying forward their legacy by taking the company to the next level. Glympse is headquartered in Seattle with offices in Europe. The pioneer of real-time location sharing technology solves the last-mile gap between companies and their customers by creating innovative, personalized and efficient consumer experiences harnessing the power and context of location sharing. The company's last-mile solutions help brands deliver a smoother customer-first experience for when people, products, and services are in motion, eliminating any 'wonder' about when they will arrive. Glympse’s flexible platform is offered with enterprise-grade location APIs and SDKs, as well as fully packaged software solutions for product/service delivery, curbside pickup (BOPIS) and roadside assistance. This package is supplemented by proactive notifications, real-time live map tracking, personalized offers, and instant feedback. All this is presented using a single, personalized and persistent web-based experience for end-consumers. Glympse, through its platform, powers several businesses including Albertsons Companies, Charter Communications, TruGreen, Rogers Communications, AAA, Steelcase, Sky Broadband Communications, Virgin Media, Rollins (Orkin), William Sonoma, VerizonWireless, SIG Ireland to name a few. “We know that location data is at the heart of every single mobile interaction so that when you use Glympse location solutions, you will receive safe, temporary and private location sharing experiences utilizing the context of location and ETA data to unlock efficiency for consumers and businesses alike. This insight is key to identifying new opportunities for revenue and efficiencies – and to unlocking entirely new business models”, explains Ruff.
“At Glympse, we solve the last-mile gap between companies and their customers with our proven enterprise solutions.” – Chris Ruff
Transformational Leadership
Chris has spent 25+ years in various executive leadership roles in the software, mobile, and IoT industries. Prior to Glympse, he spent 12 years as CEO & President of UIEvolution (now Xevo), a global leader in enterprise software for the connected car, mobile and the Internet of Things. In his role at Glympse, Chris is responsible for leading the company’s growth and global strategy, facilitating company activity in sales, marketing, partnerships, and product development.
As a company, Glympse has been exceptional at sticking to its core values while continuing to expand, refine and sometimes even push the boundaries of their business model to bring rich location sharing to new markets. "For our retail, restaurant and grocery customers, we try to help them compete with Amazon. By helping our customers provide a customer experience for their product or service deliveries and curbside pickups, we help them deliver upon their customers’ expectations, something brought to the table by Amazon", carries on Ruff.
Many such feats are the upshots of Chris's constant efforts by which he has transformed the traditional culture at Glympse to something more dynamic, focusing on a culture where team members feel empowered to share their ideas and think outside of the box. "When you give your employees/team the power to make decisions (and fail -just fail fast!), you do not have to micro-manage. I am not a micro-manager, instead, I give my team the tools they need to be successful and then I let them do it. That is not to say I’m an absent leader. I have an open door policy. If someone has a question, I am there to answer it and help along the way", shares Ruff. Furthermore, he encourages all to celebrate new milestones through weekly All Hands meetings.
Closing Transportation Gap
The Glympse Journey, as it is called, starts with a proactive notification via a web-based map for a predetermined period of time. Customers receive multiple, proactive notifications all directing them to initially view and then check back with a unique URL, where the Glympse Journey is displayed and updated. As the delivery or appointment draws closer, Glympse updates that experience from a simple confirmation with rescheduling and Add to Calendar capabilities to a “live” view of the person on the way, arrival confirmation and even an instant request for feedback. “We have mastered the nuances of building interactive experiences based on location data. We are proud to do things like automating updates to what a customer sees based on sophisticated arrival detection and geo-fencing logic, optimize battery life, and balance all of that with smooth UX/UI capabilities”, highlights Ruff.
Companies that use Glympse experience reduced 'customer no-shows' by more than 20%, reduced 'where’s my technician/delivery?' calls by 25%, deflected calls to lower cost support channels like chat or IVR, increased revenue by preventing customer cancellations and re-schedules due to inconvenience, and utilized the Glympse customer journey viewer for targeted advertising programs.
Chris Ruff, President & CEO
Looking Ahead
Glympse recently created a new solution for Albertsons, a large grocer company around a Curbside solution for online grocery shopping, giving their customers the real-time status of delivery and pickup orders. With such continuous innovation against a focused and structured roadmap, Glympse consistently sets new standards for other solution providers to follow and has enabled itself to maintain a leadership position in the field. By staying innovative, failing fast, moving quickly and staying ahead of the curve Glympse ultimately aims to become the undisputed leader in location powered last-mile CX for businesses.