Home » Chris Ruff: Delivering Customer-first Experience with Glympse’s Real-time Location Sharing Technology



In the present on-demand economy, personalized real-time interactions and exceptional customer journey experiences are crucial. Therefore, by harnessing the power of innovative technologies, businesses are striving to offer a better digital journey for their customers when ordering products and services. One of them is Glympse Inc., a pioneer of real-time location sharing technology that solves the last-mile gap between companies and their customers. Specifically, Glympse is used to power location-based customer experiences for Deliveries, Curbside Pickups, Home Services, and Roadside Assistance, making them more flexible and better.

With more than 20 years of leadership experience, the President and CEO of Glympse, Chris Ruff has deep operational insights defining corporate strategy, developing business plans and raising millions of dollars in venture capital needed to create successful high growth technology companies. At Glympse, he presides over activities in sales, marketing, partnerships, and product development areas. He also has more than 25 years of experience in the technology industry and has successfully translated corporate business visions into effective technology strategies and changes. Previously, Chris has worked in the software, mobile, and IoT industries. Prior to Glympse, he has spent 12 years as the CEO and President of UIEvolution (now Xevo)—a global leader in enterprise software for the connected car, mobile, and the Internet of Things. Today, Xevo proudly supports industry-leading companies including Toyota, Ford, Panasonic, Carnival Cruises, and many other Fortune 1000 companies.

Transforming Glympse Culture to an Open Company Environment

Chris’ honesty and transparency are the key to the transformation strategy at Glympse. Since Chris became the CEO of Glympse, he has transformed the traditional culture to improve the positivity, communication and trust in every department of the company. He has created a new dynamic surrounding in the team where his team members feel empowered to share their ideas and can think out of the box. Similarly, he encourages all to celebrate new milestones through weekly All Hands meetings.

When asked about the current digital transformations in the world of industries, Chris asserted that such change is driven by customer behavior. In the current digital age, consumer behavior patterns are changing rapidly. Therefore, to match this wave, technology companies and service providers must increase their rate of innovation. Furthermore, Chris advises aspiring entrepreneurs that if they are thinking of starting a business, they must be ahead of the game when it comes to customer experience. He also comments on the importance of uniqueness in the in-store experiences. “It isn’t enough to just create great UX or in-store experiences, instead an online and in-store experience must be seamless, dynamic, and unique to compete,” he shares.

Solving the Last-Mile Gap between Companies and Customers

Glympse’s last-mile solutions help brands deliver a smoother customer-first digital experience when people, products, and services are in motion. It provides complete details about location and context, enabling customers to get a whole idea of their arrival. Glympse’s platform includes flexible enterprise-grade location APIs and SDKs. It combines fully packaged software solutions for Product & Service Delivery, Curbside Pickup (BOPIS) and Roadside Assistance, including. proactive notifications, real-time live map tracking, personalized offers, voice capabilities, and instant feedback. Here, everything is included in a single, personalized, and persistent web-based experience for end-consumers.

Presently, Glympse is also offering a Curbside Pickup solution for retailers and grocers. This is an area where many retailers need to innovate to compete with e-commerce giants like Amazon. As customers an in route to the store to pick up their goods after ordering online, stores are able to know the real-time status of where their customers are and the ETA of when they will arrive to the store to pick up their items, reducing the frustration for the customer once they arrive.

Offering Real-time Journey with Highly Engaging Experiences

The leading global location-centric customer experience company is harnessing the power of location with its solutions. The Glympse journey experience starts when customers receive multiple, proactive notifications that direct them to initially view and then check back with a unique URL, where the Glympse journey is displayed and updated. The experience gets updated with a simple confirmation when the driver/technician draws closer. It also comes with Reschedule and Add to Calendar capabilities and shows a “live” view of the person on the way, delivery confirmation, and an instant request for feedback. Therefore, the Glympse journey is more than a live map and ETA. It satisfies the end-user with a multi-step, highly engaging experience. Additionally, the solution contains automated location-triggered messaging and smart pushes that dynamically trigger push messaging according to real-time locations. Everything happens without hampering the phones battery.

Glympse offers many advantages to its clients. It has reduced “Customer No Shows” by more than 20%. Likewise, reduced “Where’s my technician/delivery?” calls by 25%. Similarly, it has deflected calls to lower end chat support like Chat or IVR by a further 10%. It has also prevented customer cancellation and reschedules and decreased the deal inconveniences. Ultimately, this process has helped to increase revenue for the customer. Further to enhance user experience, Chris and his team are all set to launch Glympse’s Curbside/Buy Online Pickup In-Store solution in the first quarter of 2019. Due to this innovative approach for the grocery, retail, and restaurant industries, Glympse will become the only company to provide both the Delivery and Curbside solution.