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Sales and Transport Go Hand in Hand
Page 154
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ONLY too often sales representatives make totally unrealistic promises to customers and then leave it to the transport manager to fulfil them. Sales, production and distribution must be co-ordinated if customer-satisfaction is to be achieved. These views were expressed by Mr. C. Courtney tramp, general secretary of the Industrial Transport Association, in a paper on "Salesmanship and Transport " presented to the Association's London Division last week.
The basic needs of successful salesmanship was a faith in the product, followed by a guaranteed delivery, he said. Publicity and advertising should be co-ordinated to obtain maximum production. But to try and sell above that capacity would only retard expansion.
Promised delivery dates could not then be kept, and the company's reputation would suffer with every possibility of an ultimate drop in sales, whilst inevitably the transport department would be made the scapegoat.
Referring to some of the difficulties which are peculiar to transport departments, Mr. Cramp instanced the practice of production departments ordering basic materials for delivery by the supplier
when their own vehicles could have collected more economically and speedily. When scheduled deliveries did not materialize, however, the transport manager, who up till then had been ignored, was expected to arrange collection immediately.
If the entire fleet were not on the road he was told that the vehicles were "eating their heads off," yet if on another occasion one or more could not instantly be made available to meet some emergency (more often than not due to lack of foresight in other departments) the transport manager was told his department was badly organized.
When, in such circumstances, panic appeals for transport were met, often at considerable expense and inconvenience, such action was taken for granted. Inability to do so was looked upon as being 'Inca-operative.
The first person in a concern to contact the customer was the sales representative and the last the lorry driver. If the whole exercise was to be completed successfully, it was necessary to have an adequate system with a minimum of essential statistics. Less work-study and more study of work would be beneficial.