Being forced to change from traditional household cleaning to door-to-door disinfection services for enterprises and institutions, domestic service enterprises has been encouraged to develop new ideas to cope with difficult conditions created by the novel coronavirus epidemic.

The market research company iiMedia Research estimated that in 2019, the number of domestic service enterprises in China exceeded 740,000 and their turnover exceeded 700 million yuan ($100 billion).

However, the outbreak of the novel coronavirus stopped the rapid development of the domestic service sector across the nation. In 2019, Yue-life was one of the leading enterprises in the industry in Shanghai, earning close to 20 million yuan a month. After the 2020 Spring Festival holiday, Yue-life lost 80 percent of its orders.

To date, only 50 percent of Yue-life's employees have returned to work, but the company has carried out a series of online training sessions to strengthen the skills of those employees who cannot return to work.

Li Wei, the founder of Yue-life, said that taking lunch orders for workers in the 40 communities that Yue-life serves is the first step in the enterprise's efforts in "self-help".

While costs have increased during the outbreak, providing lunches can help to avoid food wastage as well as solve food supply problems encountered by staff members.

In addition to the lunch service, Yue-life has launched an indoor disinfection service.

"Hourly workers can't get into the community, but house-cleaning and disinfection services at homes must still be done. After the outbreak, we will gradually roll out upgraded services," Li said.

An employee of Yue-life prepares lunch orders for companies in the surrounding community.  [Photo/WeChat account: scofcom]