ESCAP: Guidelines for Development of Railway Marketing Systems and Procedures, Chapter 7
7. MARKETING MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONS
Selling, pricing, providing advice to customers in the area of logistics and materials handling, and promoting the railway product are the main “doing” elements of Marketing in a railway context. It is important that these activities should operate in harmony with one another, in order to achieve maximum impact in the marketplace. The responsibility for ensuring that these activities complement one another is that of the head of the Marketing unit.
7.1 The Sales Function
A railway organization which is customer-focussed will have a team of representatives, a sales force, whose primary (and crucial) role is to maintain continual liaison with customers. In conjunction with operating personnel at the field level (freight and passenger terminals, local stations), this sales force provides the main point of contact between the railway and its customers and as such can make or break the railway system’s image in the eyes of its clientele.
Selling, or the generation of new business for the railway, is just one of the functions of the sales force. Other major salesforce functions include: