Fred Smith Plumbing & Heating

Home > About Us > Our Philosophy
We don’t want to get all philosophical on you here, so we’ll keep it simple–Our business begins and ends with our clients. When they’re happy, we’re happy. This recent memo from CEO Philip Kraus to the Fred Smith team sums it up nicely.

WHO IS THE BOSS?
There is only one boss. It is the customer. It is the customer who pays everyone’s salary and who decides whether our business is going to succeed or fail. The customer does not care that Fred Smith Plumbing and Heating Company, Inc. has been around since 1914. The minute we start treating the customer without utmost respect, the customer will stop calling us.

The boss (superintendents, building managers and private tenants) pays your bills, pays for your health insurance, funds your profit sharing account, and provides your vacation. A person who works here may think he is working for Fred Smith Plumbing and Heating Company, Inc., because it is the company that writes his paycheck, but he is not. He is working for the person who buys our services, the customer. In fact, the customer can fire everyone in the company from the president on down. How does he do it? He does it by simply spending his money elsewhere. This is one of the reasons why taking pride in the work we do is so important to us personally.