John Ruley Story

Several years ago, I contacted Executive Tickets in Catonsville, Maryland, to get a quote on six concert tickets for the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young performance at the Gund arena in Cleveland, Ohio. I had heard the Washington show sold out as well. Thus, the reason for getting a quote from a ticket broker.

John Ruley took my call and promised to get back to me in a few hours. When we spoke later in the day, John explained to me that since this was an out-of-state event, he had contacted Ticket Master’s website to view the seating chart so he was familiar with the layout. He further explained that for out-of-state events like this, Executive Tickets would work closely with ticket brokers in Ohio to locate seats.

During his search for the seating chart, he decided to check the availability of seats knowing that sometimes Ticket Master releases blocks of tickets to the public. BINGO! Six seats came up available all together, end of aisle on the club level.

After explaining this, John informs me that the Ticket Master seats are $80 each at face value and that he would have to charge me twice that amount. He asked me if I was near a computer and spent the next 15 minutes walking me through the purchase of these six tickets myself. He event took time to show me how to view the eating chart so I could see the location of these tickets.

John Ruley is a customer service hero because he passed up a $1,000 sale in favor of developing a long-term repeat customer. I moved Executive Tickets to the top of my ticket broker list, replacing a competitor, because of John Ruley. Yes, one person can make a difference in a company, one contact at a time. I attended the concert in February with Cindy and the employees at Hudson. We had a great time. The icing on the cake, however, was the customer service experience I had in buying these tickets.