Service industry

“ They rate as separate items the worker's proficiency, reliability, continuity in service, indirect charges, increased cost of living, and periods of lay-off; they rate him according to the number of technical processes he is proficient in, whether or not he is engaged on more than one; they rate him if he attends the night school connected with the factory and shows in this way a disposition to learn other operations than, those he already knows. ”

“ True regulation is for the equal benefit of the consumer and the investor, and the only man who will suffer from true regulation is the speculator or the unscrupulous promoter who levies tribute equally from the man who buys the service and from the man who invests his savings in this great industry. ”

“ Indeed, customer service is emerging as a key competitive advantage today, not only in the domestic marketplace, but also in the expanding international arena.
In many industries, service is the product. The service sector accounts for 60 percent of our gross national product and provides some 70 percent of American jobs. Communications, transportation, utilities, banking, accounting, health care, and home maintenance are but a few examples of service industries indispensable to our way of life. ”

“ The advantages in the scheme are in the saving of expense in buying, economy in the preparation of all the materials consumed, a division of labor on the part of the co-operators which enables each to follow her own tastes in work, and a removal of all difficulties with the subject of service by making the servants responsible to a corporation, not to individuals. ”

“ It is as if the community entered into a sort of agreement with the worker to the effect that it will provide him with a living in return for definite service to the community or for the product of his labor. What we call "business" is SELLING A SERVICE. It may be personal service, such as teaching, or prescribing medicine, or nursing, or giving legal advice, or cutting hair, or driving a team, or running an automobile. ”

“ The goal of service excellence is not easy to attain. Consumers must demand it, and everyone in an organization, be it a business or a government agency, must be committed to it, both in everyday interactions and in longer-term goals. ”

“ It is equally well settled, however, that it is the duty of the employer to select and retain servants who are fitted and competent for the service, and to furnish sufficient and safe materials, machinery, or other means by which it is to be performed, and to keep them in repair and order. ”

“ The nearest associated ideas are found in governmental services through a post office department or the management of a system of transportation. Most advocates of the method overlook the fact that in such government administration of partial industries the law of competition is still operative between these enterprises and the universal industry of the people. ”

“ That is, the quality of the service, the advantages of one type of service over the other, the availability of equipment, safety, labor cost, and many other factors may all give significance to the figures that figures themselves do not give. ”

“ In co-operation with properly constituted authorities, and as the result of careful, scientific study of the whole situation, the employment department assists in establishing rates of pay commensurate with the work done, with the conditions in the industry, and with their probable effect upon the loyalty, happiness, and consequent efficiency of the employees. ”

“ You will, however, in general avail yourself of the services of any Persons, whether Fugitives from Labor or not, who may offer them to the National Government; you will employ such Persons in such services as they may be fitted for, either as ordinary employees, or, if special circumstances seem to require it, in any other capacity with such organization, in squads, companies, or otherwise, as you deem most beneficial to the service. ”

“ All are under the direct management of experts, whose mechanical skill is utilized to assist in rendering the store service complete, and whose services are recognised on an equality with those occupying the most responsible positions in connection with the business. ”

“ It is why I issued an Executive Order that directed all executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government to embark upon a revolution to change the way they do business and establish and implement customer service standards that match or exceed the best in the private sector. And it is why our policies continue to emphasize the paramount importance of service excellence to the success of our Nation, our economy, and our efforts to compete in the global marketplace. ”

“ In any system of universal service there needs to be some plan of industrial adjustment, as to time, payments, and releases from work, so that the burden will not fall too heavily upon special industries at critical times of output. ”

“ As a general thing, it was felt by the men responsible for this regulation that service was the first thing to be sought and if proper service could be attained with a fair return to the corporation, that was all that was necessary. ”

“ From the selfish point of view the chief interest of the employer is to keep the bills down and to get the greatest possible amount of service even at the cost of the greatest expenditure of human strength; among employees, it is to do sufficient work to retain a good place, and to use whatever materials are most convenient. ”

“ The clearly recognized task is now to coördinate these various agencies into an efficient national system, eliminating partizan politics and elevating the management of all branches to the plane of professional service. Through these agencies can be operated an industrial service, analogous in function to the weather bureau, and reporting from day to day the pressure of demand and the prospects for labor in the various parts of the country. The economic results of a complete, exclusive, and efficient service of this kind would far exceed its legitimate cost to the community. ”

“ It seems possible in view of the facts stated in this second group of propositions to draw these conclusions. In states containing a relatively high urban population it is possible for wealth to command the services of a large proportion of persons for work in domestic service. ”

“ Each department is charged with the goods bought and with the expense of selling, and credited with the sales made. Each section pays its proper share of all general expenses, such as delivering goods, lighting, heating, elevator service, fixtures, rent, etc. The system employed enables the head of the business to always know the true condition of each section. It enables him to know, if desired, what each individual salesperson does; how much the total business is of any department on any day ”

“ Let technical and commercial education be understood to be an essential branch of the work of developing the resources and forces of British industry, and be connected with this department.
Let our commercial department be in constant and daily touch with the trade interests of the country, be accessible to every man, as in the United States and our colonies, and accessible to workingmen as well as to employers. ”

“ The upshot of all this is, that as soon as we assume the performance of a certain service to be necessary for the public convenience, and that those who undertake that service are in duty to the public bound not to cause or to permit that service to be interrupted, we must admit at the same time that the public becomes in duty bound to afford them a corresponding measure of protection in the performance of that service. ”

“ They have all to compete with the department stores, but their customers realize that they have something to offer that can be offered by no department store—expert service in one line, due to some one’s life-long training, experience and devotion to the public. ”

“ To the community at large the work of pecuniary management, it appears, is less serviceable the more there is of it. The heroic role of the captain of industry is that of a deliverer from an excess of business management. It is a casting out of business men by the chief of business men. ”

“ The Services may be conceived of and spoken of separate from the Value into which they merge, although they come into existence solely for the sake of that resultant Value, and it is more exact and final to propound that Money, itself a Service, is a measure of all other Services considered as constituent elements of the Values into which they fall. ”

“ This year's theme for National Consumers Week is "service signals success." Service is an indispensable element of success over the long term in both business and government: service that is responsive, convenient, and courteous, service that meets the expectations of consumers and taxpayers. Clever promotions and deceptive pricing may generate short-term profits in business. Promises alone may gain brief support for Government agencies and programs. But American consumers and taxpayers aren't easily deceived. ”

“ The personnel of the staff was considered to be of the greatest importance, and, in the selection of men, the requirements desired were: experience in the construction and operation of railroads, thorough technical training, high standing in the Profession, as shown by membership in the American Societies of Civil or Mechanical Engineers, or of other Societies of high standing, and high moral character. Politics, residence in the State, or local influence, had absolutely no weight in the selection of any of the men. ”

“ Whether the individual establishment or the individual department be regarded as the unit of economic activity, the outstanding feature of the manufacturing industry is the immense number of units that must be in working order and co-operating harmoniously with the others before the whole can function smoothly. ”

“ The facilities which you have for keeping abreast of the times, like the employing of experts to do experimental work, thereby improving your product all the time, is a point of service well worth consideration. ”

“ If this particular fact is recognized, the service of the company should be organized accordingly, and each of the several divisions of the operating department would have on its rolls two classes of men: First, those who have been admitted into the permanent service of the company; and, second, those who for any cause are only temporarily in that service. And no man should be admitted into the permanent service until after he has served an apprenticeship in the temporary service. ”

“ With regard to any particular service or concern, I would ask, Is it more convenient, more likely to lead to economy and efficiency, to let this service rest in the hands of some single person or group of persons who may offer to do the service or administer the concern, and whom we will call the owners, or to place it in the hands of some single person or group of persons, elected or chosen by lot, whom we will call the official or group of officials? ”

“ So that, after you join the Industrial Workers, when you go to your work in the morning, you will not be tied to your task blindly; you will have a thought about your relation to your fellow-workingmen in all other departments. You will understand your part in the enterprise, and your connection with and relation to the whole. You will help to fit your fellows for the new function, so that when the hour strikes you will be perfectly trained and ready to take control of industry and operate the productive enterprises in the interests of the people. ”

“ Several funds or societies have been established in connection with the Company's service, in order to enable every member of the staff to make prudent provision against the results of accident, sickness, death, or old age, and a brief description of the working of these societies, which, judging from the success which has attended their operations, may to some extent be regarded as models of their kind, may not be without interest. ”

“ Precisely the same objections that hold in all other employments to the wage system hold as well in domestic service. In other occupations it has been seen that the almost universal testimony of those who have tried profit sharing is that the system results in economy in the use of materials, care in the handling of machinery and implements of work, and a feeling of partnership, the spur of which as a motive “is only excelled in sharpness by complete proprietorship.” ”

“ General Agents. "The walks of business become more manifold and extended as the luxuries of civilization and the skill of human inventions become more multiplied and more widely displayed. Every description of commercial, mechanical, and executive business excited and created by the new wants and new imaginations of advancing society, will call for the creation and extension of new agencies to accomplish the labor which they must demand. Thus the variety and number of business agencies of every kind must spread out in a constant increase." ”

“ Our duty plainly consists, first, in regarding a public service corporation as a public agent, and, second, in allotting such values that this public agent will receive a full and fair return for every dollar judiciously and honestly spent in building and developing its property. ”

“ The leading occupation in each of these cities is some form of manufacturing, and in each of them the proportion of persons engaged in manufacturing processes is larger than, with few exceptions, in the other cities. This fact explains the apparent contradiction between this statement and the one that domestic servants are found in the largest proportions in the largest cities. ”

“ The public scarcely realise the amount of financial and technical knowledge required on the part of men who have to organise the service, to enter into contracts with railways and steamship companies, or to preserve the discipline of the vast staff in town and country. This was the kind of work done at St. Martin's le Grand, and the men of the early and mid-Victorian period were workers in the full sense of the word. ”