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The purpose of this paper is to derive mobile-government (m-government) service-quality factors in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and develop an integrated strategic plan for improving the quality of m-government services from a customer perspective in the GCC.

A quantitative approach was used in this case study of m-government services in the GCC. Data were collected using focus groups and questionnaires for three similar m-government applications (one from the United Arab Emirates, one from the Saudi Arabia and one from Oman). The house of quality tool, including technical benchmarking, was applied as part of the quality function deployment (QFD) approach to identify customer requirements, translate them to technical requirements and develop a strategic plan for improving the quality of m-government services.

The results revealed that “real time” had the highest priority for deployment, while “tangible service,” contrary to expectations, had the lowest priority for deployment.

Study findings are limited to the m-government services delivered to citizens. There is scope for further study into m-government services delivered both to businesses and other governments.

The findings imply that the m-government decision makers must involve citizens in all service-development processes to ensure that service delivery meets citizens’ expectations.

Most previous studies regarding m-government service-quality dimensions have used information system service-quality dimensions. This study is one of the pioneering studies to have successfully derived m-government service-quality factors using the QFD matrix.

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.