Improving the quality of mobile government services in the Gulf Cooperation Council

Purpose 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. Design/methodology/approach 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. Findings Results show that the technical requirement “real time” has the highest priority for deployment and “tangible service” has the lowest priority. Research limitations/implications Findings are limited to m-government services. Further studies could explore other government services such as traditional face-to-face services. Practical implications 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. Originality/value 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.