Improving the quality of mobile government services in the Gulf Cooperation Council: A quality-function-deployment approach

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to provide a concrete, integrated plan to improve the service quality of mobile government (m-government) services from the customer perspective in the Gulf Cooperation Council. A quantitative approach was used to analyze a case study of the UAE Ministry of Interior (MOI) mobile application and a competitor: the MOI application of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Data were collected using a focus group. Results show that the technical requirement “real time” has the highest priority for deployment and “tangible service” has the lowest priority. Findings are limited to m-government services. Further studies could explore other government services such as traditional face-to-face services. Results imply that if government decision-makers or software developers aim to understand customer requirements and improve their mobile services accordingly, the quality-function-deployment (QFD) approach is much more effective than traditional approaches in which decisions regarding services are prioritized based on the decision-makers or software developers’ perspectives. Many previous studies have applied QFD for developing products based on customer needs. This, however, is one of the few studies to successfully apply the QFD matrix to m-government services.