By Alfred Branch, Jr.
While some ticket brokers’ days end at 6pm, Jeremy Berry’s day is just beginning.
Berry is the owner and founder of Tickety-Split.com (site coming soon), a company that offers after-hours call center and broker services to secondary ticketers that allows these resellers to capture sales that they might otherwise lose.
Many brokers end their days at 6pm, so Berry’s company begins taking orders at that time up until midnight and guarantees that the tickets will be in the customer’s hands via FedEx the next morning. Tickety-Split stops taking orders at midnight to ensure that the tickets are shipped by 1am. . .
“We’ve found that there are people who need tickets at the last minute but aren’t comfortable ordering over the Internet for a quick turnaround, and they’d rather talk to someone over the phone than leave a message,” Berry said. “If a broker doesn’t return that message quickly, they’ll lose a sale and could lose a customer for life.”
Berry is also a ticket broker and owns RavingLunaTix.com, so he knows the industry and how it works. “Brokers don’t realize that if they didn’t get a message one night doesn’t mean they didn’t get calls. We make sure someone is there to take those calls,” he said.
The idea for Tickety-Split.com grew out of a need to keep some of Berry’s college football fan customers happy. He used to get calls from desperate brokers on Fridays before Alabama, Auburn or Georgia games looking for tickets last minute tickets. “They’d ask me, ‘Jeremy, are you going to be at the game? How could get those seats?’ I’d tell them I’m not going to be there, but I can get the tickets to them quickly without any hassles, and they appreciated that,” he said.
Berry said if a broker hired someone to take after-hours calls, they could spend close to $3,000 per month on salary, benefits and expenses. Tickety-Split charges $300 per month.
“If you’re able to ship tickets quickly and get them there without any hassles, customers will go with you over another broker,” Berry said, adding that each day the company will send brokers details of every call they receive. “These are customers who know what they want and are looking for results. “
