"But that is not I wanted. It was miserable waiting all day long for my husband to come home. I did not want to get old like that," says Dong, who was eager to find opportunities to get back to work.
At that time they just moved into a new 200-sq-m apartment that her husband bought. After several weeks of cleaning and maintaining of the big apartment, Dong realized how tedious the work was. She decided to look for a part-time ayi, or housemaid, to take care of the apartment. But the house-keeping service market in Shenyang was still in its infancy and Dong was unable to find a satisfactory ayi. That gave her the idea that she turned into a success story.
"I believed many people have the same needs as me, which meant a great market potential," Dong recalls.
A year later she launched Guanpoer, a Chinese word for female housekeeper. She hired mostly laid-off women workers and started to build her own home service kingdom.
With over 30 outlets around Shenyang, Guanpoer's headquarters is located in an office building in the northern part of the city. Equipped with computers, large cabinets lined with document folders, bright windows and house plants, it looks like any other modern office, rather than a home service agency, where one usually sees a middle-aged woman sitting beside an old desk answering phone calls and booking house keeping service.
Dong's ambition is to create a well-known brand in the Chinese home service industry. "'Filipino housekeeper' could become a brand for the home service industry of the Philippines. Why can't China have its own brand? We have not only a huge market but also an abundant supply of labor," Dong says.
Guanpoer was recently certified ISO9001:2000 through Orion Registrar, a quality and environmental systems registrar based in the United States, which makes it the only Chinese home service company to comply with an international management standard.
Housekeepers at Guanpoer are required to work in compliance with its working manual, which illustrates specific working procedures. For example, they must follow seven procedures to clean a window and 12 steps to wax the floor.
Dong says she was determined to standardize the home service process due to her personal experience with a part-time ayi.
"She attempted to clean my kitchen first, then my restroom and then my bedroom, using the same piece of cloth. I stopped her and got very angry," Dong recalls.
"House keeping service has a lot of trivial details. If we don't pay attention to those details, it would be impossible to keep our customers," she says.
While most of her counterparts act as house keeping agencies, introducing ayi to clients and collecting commissions, Dong signs employment contracts with the housekeepers.
Customers are charged by Guanpoer who pays the housekeepers monthly salaries, which Dong believes improves the company's quality control.
Guanpoer also worked with Ping An Insurance to develop a special insurance product for housekeepers who accidentally damage or destroy customers' possessions while cleaning and maintaining their houses. The insurance company will pay up to 5,000 yuan per customer. |