Woman boosts smart housekeeping service industry with persistence and love

Guo Xiaoqiang, an entrepreneur engaged in the housekeeping sector, focuses on maternal and infant care. [China Women's News]

It was when she was a college student that Guo Xiaoqiang decided to provide top healthcare services for mothers and infants. Given her years of efforts, Guo now is a famed businesswoman in the sectors of health management for mothers and infants and in housekeeping services.

A new career begins

In 2007, Guo, then a college-bound entrepreneur, created an advertising media company. With her creativity and outstanding performance, it quickly became a national first-class advertising company.

Five years later, when Guo was doing some filming work with her team at a local maternal and child health hospital in east China's Jiangsu province, she found many mothers were unable to breastfeed their babies, and suffered pain because of blockages in their breasts. Some of them lacked basic postpartum care and fell ill.

Guo felt there was a huge need for care services for mothers and babies. Her family members were not supportive of her idea, believing that the maternal and child housekeeping industry is less rewarding than advertising. However, Guo had confidence in this business which she thought could help others and has great space for improvement in standardization and service quality.

Fuel a company with love

Guo still remembers the first time her employee provided service to her customer. The company's pediatric massage technician, not having much experience, was very nervous when providing service at the customer's home - although she had been skilled at massaging babies during the training sessions. Guo used WeChat to encourage and guide the technician. Though this first-time service was not satisfactory, Guo still patiently communicated with the customer, hoping to get another chance to provide the service for free and to gain more hands-on experience. The customer agreed and Guo was grateful for the trust and tolerance, and determined to stick to this new career.

One of the most important qualities in the maternal and child housekeeping service industry is benevolence. One day, in 2015, Guo received a call during a meeting. A new mother was suffering from milk stasis. Guo immediately drove a technician to the woman's house.

After emergency treatment, the mother finally discharged milk smoothly. Seeing the mother's smile, Guo felt that it was rewarding and that she really was doing a great thing for women.

The love and benevolence were not only reserved for customers. Guo also helped impoverished trainees pay their training fees, arranging for their family members to live together, and helping them grow into locally well-known technicians.

Since its establishment, Guo's firm has provided free training and assistance to more than 30,000 needy women seeking to start their own service businesses.

Striving for joint development

With an aim to give a boost to more domestic service companies, Guo set up an industrial park in 2019, dedicated to promoting the expansion and improvement of the domestic service industry by ensuring standard services, innovating smart operations, strengthening training and cultivating talents.

Cooperating with local women's federations and other institutions, Guo established green channels to provide training and employment opportunities for women in poverty-stricken areas and set up a registration system for domestic service personnel in communities.

To date, the park has organized more than 70 public training sessions, helping 12,000 women find employment.

At the same time, Guo has led her company to create models known as "Internet plus maternal and child massive health service" and "smart housekeeping," offering a display and communication platform for housekeeping service workers and clients, developing smart wearable devices to monitor the health of clients in real time, and offering professional advice on health.

(Source: China Women's News/Translated and edited by Women of China)