“We have a power failure because of an induction cooker and we are hungry. Could you fix the problem?” “Please tell me the exact address of your house, and we will contact the nearest service company to your house to provide the repair service.” Mr. Xu was still concerned if there will be anyone coming since it is so late, although he had got a positive answer.

Fifteen minutes after the call, an electrician knocked on his door. Almost at the same time, the phone rang again, which was from the 8890 operator to confirm the arrival of the electrician.

About ten minutes later, Mr. Xu’s house was lit again. The electrician charged 10 yuan for the material after carefully examining the switches. The next morning, 8890 called again: “Are you satisfied with the service? Would you be kindly to give us some feedback?”

In the past, on one hand, the residents could not have proper household service; on the other hand, companies able to provide good services had difficulty accessing clients. This dilemma ended on May 12th, 2005 with a hotline 8890 opened by the Tianjin Municipal Government.

The 8890 hotline works through two approaches. One is through phone calls. Local residents in need of household service or help can ring 24-hour hotline “88908890 ( “Ba ba jiu ling ba ba jiu ling” meaning “effective once called” in Chinese). The hotline operator will contact relevant contract service providers, who will offer timely service for those in need. The second approach is through surfing the “Tianjin 8890 family service website” (www.tj8890.gov.cn). Local residents can search the service they need through the searching engine on the website. They have to submit relevant information such as their location and demand, and get in touch with relevant service providers.

The 8890 hotline services involve housekeeping, maintenance, shopping, transportation, culture and so on. It promises to provide 26 major services, covering 350 sub-categories, ranging from fixing clothes rack and locks to maintaining houses, from cutting keys to providing chartered tourist buses. At the end of 2008, new services devoted to senior citizens, farmers and investors in Tianjin have been started.

Since its opening, the 8890 hotline handles approximately 6,000 cases per day, and has dealt with 5 million cases in the past four years.

The 8890 hotline is described as an intersection, serving as an information bridge between local residents and service providers. The bridge is sponsored and set up by the government. So far, there are more than 22,000 service-oriented enterprises joining the hotline, compared with over 10,000 before. The 8890 website has recorded a visiting volume of more than 5.4 million. The feedback from those who seek service through 8890 demonstrates that all customers are satisfied with 8890’s service, and 99 percent are content with the service providers’ job.

One appeal of the hotline is that there is no hotline service fee charged either for service receivers or service providers.

One would be amazed at countless seemingly impossible problems 8890 has solved.

“My colleague was gored by a potamotrygon motoro tropical fish when cleaning the fish tank. The wound is dark and he suffers numbness in his feet and feels dizzy. He has tried several hospitals but nothing works. Please, help him!”

Operator No. 026 immediately submitted the case to the Operations Home Office soon after he received the call. “We first contacted all major hospitals, but they could not deal with it. Next, we contacted medium- and small-sized hospitals and clinics and it still didn’t work. And none of the quarantine stations could help,” recalled the operations division staff responsible for rare illnesses. “We extended our research range and searched on the Internet. Finally, we found out that Beijing 304 Hospital was able to deal with it. The patient was saved.”

According to Mr. Pan Yunkang, director of Social Sciences Institute of Tianjin Academy of Social Sciences, 8890 Household Service Network is a good try of the government to change its role to a service-oriented government. It solves the residents’ problem while earning the government reputations.