Section 4 Strengthening the Management of Post Service, improving the Quality of Service

A. The establishment of "eight-points service principle"

To serve the people wholeheartedly was the purpose of the postal service in P.R. China, but in the course of implementation, there once appeared the problem of deviation from the principle. In 1952, in the movement for increasing production and practicing economy and the movement of extending postal service, postal sectors resorted to the apportionment, e.g., to mobilize the masses to send messages of greeting and telegrams of congratulations to Chairman Mao and the Central Government, to compel masses to subscribe newspapers and periodicals, and use expensive postage service. Such actions were criticized seriously by leaders of Central Government.

In the early 1953, Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications launched a movement for "rectifying the deviation" in all postal sectors of different levels, criticized the "capitalist" management idea for "pure task, Pure Profit", and took a series of effective measures to push forward the postal and communications service healthily.

After the movement, postal cadres, staff and workers were educated deeply, and most of them had a keen understanding of the characteristic of postal and communication production, fostered further postal service principle firmly and clarified the service idea that "quality is the most important". On November 19, 1952, Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications issued "the instruction on Overcoming the Shortcomings in Developing Business and the Orientation of Post in the Future", and posed its service principle as "Speed, Accuracy, Security and Convenience." According to the principle, the postal enterprises at different levels strengthened management, improved the service quality, amplified regulations and set up more networks and tried the best to provide convenience for customers. The broad staff and workers regarded the principle as their guideline to improve service and quality. During this period, there appeared many moving scenes.

However, in this movement for "rectifying the deviation", postal sectors had not made scientific analyses in checking and criticizing "the management idea of capitalism", and enlarged incorrectly the scope of capitalistic management idea. As a result, postal sectors were afraid of committing political mistakes and were afraid of developing the postal service in a long run, bringing a certain negative impact on the development of the postal cause freely.

B. Establishing and amplifying rules and regulations, strengthening the management of postal enterprises

In August, 1953, when the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications arranged the work of the second half of the year, it was emphasized that planned management would be paid attention to, and the management of postal enterprises ill all aspects would be strengthened. In 1954, in light of the peculiarity of postal Production, the work of being against nobody being responsible and establishing all kinds of systems of job responsibility was launched. Production commanding systems were successively set up among production management at all levels. By May 1955, about 200 enterprises had established and amplified the system of executive responsibility, system of Production responsibility, system of technique responsibility, system of equipment maintenance and overhauling responsibility, and system of safety responsibility for communication line and mail. transportation deportments. In the meantime, the postal deportments combined rectification and adjustment of organizations with establishing and amplifying rules and regulations, and with strengthening the leadership in service.

In 1955, four decisions concerning the level of postal and communication services were approved by the fourth national postal working conference guaranteed the quick delivery, promoted a reasonable organizing of work, and improved the service level effectively.

C. Improving the management of network and operation, increasing benefits

To boost up the capacity of mail transportation, the postal departments paid attention to the organizational management of postal transportation and setting up regular mail transportation order. The Directorate General of Posts issued a circular order of trial implementation of planned transportation method to improve the work of railway transportation and get over turbulence phenomena in May, 1950, demanding that every mail route worked out a mail flow plan according to the volume, flow directions and different time limits of mails. At the very beginning, the method was put into trial operation on Beijing-Shanghai railway line and the systems of prediction, dispatching and regular inspection were set up. After a year's trial operation, the method was popularized successively on the trunk lines across the country in 1952.

Post carriage on the International
Train from Beijing to Moscow 

On this basis, in December, 1957, the Directorate General of Posts decided to set up the system of mail transportation dispatch responsibility offices. Six offices were successively set up in Beijing, Shenyang, Shanghai, Wuhan, Xi'an and Chengdu. In the meantime, proposed by some offices, the teamwork cooperation on the basis of "associated contract" between the mail car office and the ground office was gradually established. The mail transportation order of 'joint operation among entire mail routes and whole network" was maintained and a phase of civilized production and orderly operation appeared on the mail trunk routes.

In order to alter the actuality that mails were relayed layer by layer and low mail delivery speed, the post offices in Tianjin, Beijing and Shanghai actively studied the methods to shorten the whole delivery tiime and to improve the sorting, sealing and dispatching of mails. In 1951, during an activity of launching labour emulation and promoting rationalization proposals, Tianjin Post Office collected people's proposals, created the method of Planned sorting and dispatching, namely in the spirit of improving the entire mail delivery efficiency, mails were sealed and dispatched in a planned way by selecting effective trains and linking effective delivery shifts of the destination offices. Shanghai Post Office also adjusted and improved the relation between sorting and dispatching through promoting links with the main offices along railway. The system of direct sealing was established and frequency of sealing and dispatching was increased. In 1952 and l953, Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications summed up and popularized the experiences of planned sorting and dispatching invented by Tianjin Post Office, took the sorting, sealing and dispatching as the central work, and organized the entire Office to operate according to the "close operation chat, greatly increasing the delivery efficiency.

Warm reception of customers in
the Post Offices of Dongsi in Beijing

In 1953, all trunk railway organized homemade mail vans provided by post office to be connected to trains and popularized sorting abroad. The mails delivered between large offices along the railway lines and those without direct origin--destination relation, or those that could not be sorted in time, could be sorted abroad and dispatched along the lines, so the delivery speed and efficiency were improved. In 1954, the Directorate General of Posts formulated and carried out "The sorting method of domestic ordinal and registered mail" on the basis of those experiences. therefore, the work Of mail sorting, sealing and dispatching was initially put into track of following rules and regulation.

D. improving work, serving the customers whole heartedly

Luo Shuzhen, the national model
worker was sending letters

At the beginning of the founding of P.R. China, some old regulations of the Chinese Postal Administration continued to be followed. For example, no parcel and remittance business would be done at noon, in the evening and on Sunday. Clerks were not allowed to fill forms for customers, plus a lot of new comers, low service level and no enthusiastic attitude, all this made customers feel the existence of bureaucratism in post offices. Beijing Postal departments took the lead in abolishing the old regulations and serving k people with enthusiasm. Post of" flees across the country abandened unreasonable rules and regulations. Many concrete measures were taken to improve the quality of service: Prolonging business hours, increasing postal windows, shortening line time for waiting, etc. Thinking of there being a great number of illiterates and send-illiterates among laborers, operators filled forms for those could not do it themselves; Wrapping paper, wood boxes, sewing kits, nails and sinkers were prepared in postal windows to facilitate customers. Information desks were also set up in some places to answer difficult questions. Mobile service and visiting service were also available. Regular and fixed visiting service was provided for plants, mines, forest zone, construction building sites which had no post office or were far away from post office according to the distributing location, business volume and the date of payday. At the beginning of 1950s, Luo Shuzhen, a post distress in Beijing Post Office, frequently saw the happiness of customers when a letter was received and the worry appeared in customer's face when no letter arrived. She deeply realized that a letter was a symbol of affection. For decades, she had always thought what people worried about, been conscientious and meticulous with work, and carefully served the people with all her enthusiasm and good manners. Millions of letters were delivered through her hand with no single mistake. The meritorious deeds of Luo Shuzhen was honored by Ministry of Post and Telecommunications and was widely known and praised. The slogan of "a letter, one warm heart" had a far-reaching influence on postal staff and workers nationwide, especially on post carriers, to improve their services.

Mao Zedong, Zhu De, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou
Enlai, met with the delegations of the
National Conference of Advanced Post
Workers (April 25, 1956)

E. Launching activities of labor emulation and technique performance

To improve the quality of service, postal communications, postal departments launched labor emulation in various forms, concluded and popularized advanced experiences, organized the activity of "emulation, learned from, catching up and helping each other", and learned from the advanced thoughts and methods of advanced collectives and excellent workers, and launched on-post training. The adoption of all these measures made new service levels of communications appear in all posts. In 1956, a national conference of representatives of excellent workers in post system was held in Beijing. The advanced experiences of posts and communications, including 44 pieces from posts, were exchanged during the session. The popularization of those experiences greatly contributed to deepening the activity of "labor emulation and on-post training."