Abstract

This study assesses the management of technology quality in the United Arab Emirates Government Mobile Apps services through customers satisfaction. The aim is to gain information and evaluate the quality in Self-Service Technology (SST) in UAE Government Mobile Apps. There are key performance indicators to measure the progress of achieving Government Vision 2021 which are Happiness Index, National Identity Index, Human Development Index, Social Cohesion Index, Family Cohesion Index, and Number of Olympic medals won. This research focuses on the Happiness index by measuring UAE government Mobile Apps customers’ satisfaction. The primary source of this research includes a questionnaire developed to assess the level of customers satisfaction through the factors: perceived usefulness, security/ trust, reliability, enjoyment, and perceived ease of use. First the importance index for all factors was computed so as to rank the factors. Then structure equation modelling was conducted to explore the relationship between the measured constructs which are the user perceived quality and user satisfaction with the use of Mobile Apps. Interviews were also conducted to uncover potential discontent with the use of this technology.

1. Introduction

Quality management is the major criteria for services as the customer prefers quality service. SST are technological interfaces that allow customers to have services where there is no need to have involvement with a direct service employee. Technology and services can be connected parallel by the operation of SST that is usually achieved by using smartphones and internet. These services are attracting customers as they no longer have to wait in queues. However, still interaction with customers is a vital factor in considering quality.

When there is no face to face interaction with the employee, the customer may not be able to express satisfaction level since in this case SST is a virtual facility. Complaints and word of mouth cannot be experienced and may be regarded as a negative impact as there is no bridge between the customer and the service provider. Major companies do quality check by asking feedback to their customers to know what should be improved for a higher customer satisfaction. These feedback systems are incorporated with the service technology itself so that the customer could redirect to the feedback system just after accessing the service.

With the larger focus on SST, more companies are choosing it over the conventional service since there is an advantage of efficiency and expected service quality. SST is becoming most common even in basic sectors such as education, work, business and entertainment.

A customer’s view point may not be similar to that of a manager and this could be regarded as a common issue in Self Service systems. Managers sometimes underestimate customer satisfaction which makes distortions in the service quality. So it is necessary to preserve the quality especially when there is a high usage of SST. These services require less employee interaction and thus there is an imbalance in knowing about the quality of the service.

Quality check is a big issue as there are multiple companies who can give quality services in a more efficient manner. So companies have to be in a competitive position to reach higher standards. And most of the companies invest in quality management to face competition.

It is necessary to establish factors to measure self-service technology quality in UAE’s Government Mobile Apps services. There is a lack in service research for measuring self-service technology especially Mobile Apps services usage ¹. In this research we aim to measure the progress to achieve UAE 2021 vision consisting of six sectors Healthcare, Competitive Knowledge Economy, Safe Public and Fair Judiciary, Cohesive Society and Preserved Identity, First-Rate Education System, and Sustainable Environment and Infrastructure ².

Lack of quality measurement of mobile Apps would have a negative impact on customer satisfaction. Our life is switching to digital and most of the government services are on mobile Apps to achieve high customer satisfaction. But the question is whether the e-government is in the right track to achieve 2021 vision or it still needs to improve mobile Apps

The aim of the study is to evaluate the quality management principles considering the development in Self-service technology particularly in UAE Government Mobile Apps in order to improve the customer satisfaction of UAE government Mobile Apps. Another aim includes the development of quality dimensions. A model is developed to assess the quality of the UAE government Mobile Apps.

The approach is focused in measuring Self-service Technology quality of UAE Government Mobile Apps, and to give an indication whether the customer is satisfied with quality of the service. The UAE government should know weak points in the self-service technology Mobile Apps. The factors to measure quality are perceived usefulness, security/trust, reliability, enjoyment, and perceived ease of use.

2. Literature Review

United Arab Emirates is getting globalised through its industries and organizations and it is taking huge leap in using smart technology. Digitalization is being done in government services, remotely monitoring infrastructure facilities and 3D simulations ³. A study made by HSBC bank reports a high technological opportunity in UAE considering its development and global value. The study shows a total of 67 percent use of online services to purchase ⁴. Virtual reality is taking more advantage in the development of the nation. More implementation on big data, artificial intelligence and predictive analysis alone with virtual reality is taking the pace in the technological development of the country ⁴. UAE government major target is to have an increment on economic development with efficiency in energy ². The momentum of information and communication technology is maintained with the adoption of innovation and new solutions to technical problems ⁵. This revolutionary technology is bringing advancement in areas such as medical, educational and business sectors ⁶. UAE has a solid infrastructure and high customer acceptance to adapt UAE Mobile Apps since technology readiness has an influence on self-service technology service quality ⁷. Moreover UAE has the fastest internet access among the Arab countries and ranked among the 20^th worldwide.

Many studies were conducted on customer satisfaction constrained to mobile app self-service technology but still there is a lack of research in measuring self-service quality in general ^{1, 8}. A study was conducted in UAE to test the factors that may influence user’s intention to adopt mobile government but was limited to university students. It revealed trust and social influence are positively related to user intention to adopt UAE mobile government services ⁹.

Since Mob-apps is an evolving technology, no major studies have taken place considering the measuring of service quality and customer satisfaction of mobile apps SST. There are existing studies on m-government and e-government and on SST but in different fields like e-banking and online retailing. Finally, findings in SST quality may contradict with other research outcomes which may be due to a different type of self-service technology ¹⁰.

SITA Passenger IT Trends Survey conducted in the UAE revealed 48 percent airline passenger prefer self-service technology considering traditional face to face interaction with the service provider ¹¹. The survey developed a notion that more passengers are being attracted to the self-service system as there are a total of 93 percent passenger's book air tickets online and 61 percent access their boarding pass using this facility ¹¹.

Smart Apps is a system of collecting data from different sources encompassing predictive analytics, learning algorithms and sensors ¹². They are proactive and intelligent given its analytical capabilities. Unlike Smart App, non-smart app lack interconnectivity between processes to collect information. The system in non-smart app cannot collect information from one source to process it for another source so that the user experience can be enhanced while using the app.

Most studies done in UAE focused on e-government adaptation and challenges. A study ¹³ had covered eight departments of Dubai government, the outcomes were a lack of clear and consistent performance measurement tools, lack of technical knowledge for the staff. From 32 articles reviewed, only two articles focused on mobile apps usage and service management ¹. The remaining were about the relations between customer engagement, perceived value and satisfaction in mobile apps ¹⁴. We conclude that there is a lack of researches on the usage of mobile apps. Further SST assessment maybe different for different types of service ¹⁵. A list of UAE federal smart Apps is given in the Appendix.

3. Service Quality Factors and Hypotheses Development

Perceived usefulness refers to customer concerns about time and efficiency while using SST to complete a service transaction ^{16, 17}. The quality of the SST is evaluated by customers through comparing service delivery with face to face services. SST is based on the benefit earned by ¹⁸, so if customers do not feel that SST improves efficiency and working performance, it would affect the adaptation of SST. Finally, if customers are forced to use SST without perceived usefulness, it will result in low customer satisfaction as it will be considered as wastage of time and effort. As a result, customers will evaluate SST as a low quality service as it does not meet their needs and expectations so:

H1: Perceived usefulness of government mobile apps relates positively to service quality.

Security is defined as "the willingness to rely on an exchange partner in whom one has confidence" ¹⁰. Risks in SST context are higher than traditional context as transactions involves transmitting data through wireless which will let customers exposed to privacy and security risk. Studies found that there is a positive relation between security and service quality which are technical and functional quality ¹⁰. Research found that security is the main element considered by the customer before using a service or a system and found that customers who consider the service is safe would have a positive attitude toward it ⁹. Finally, trust or security will lead to a positive impact on customer satisfaction ¹⁹:

H2: security of government mobile apps relates positively to service quality.

Reliability refers to how a service provider delivers the expected standard, handle customer problem, providing service within the promised time and maintaining error free service ²⁰. If customers still need to do face to face interaction with employees, it may make SST considered as useless from their point view. Reliability is an important factor in assessing service quality and has a positive influence on customer satisfaction ²¹. Therefore the following hypothesis is established:

H3: reliability of government mobile apps relates positively to service quality.

Enjoyment is defined as "fun arising intrinsically from interacting with technology ¹⁷. People value the entertainment involved in using SST which motivates the customer to use SST ²². Studies showed that perceived enjoyment positively influence customer satisfaction ¹⁶. In addition, enjoyment with the use of SST is one of the main factors affecting the evaluation of service quality ²². SST should allow customers initiate service at their desired time and location ¹⁶. Providing SST as a social experience and entertainment is essential for the user regardless of the functionality. Thus the following hypothesis is proposed:

H4: customer enjoyment in using SST relates positively to service quality.

Ease of use is defined as easily accessing and navigating the mobile app. It is important for customers or users to find the service easy to use and error free. Researchers found that there is a direct and significant relationship between perceived ease of use and user intention to adopt SST ⁹. It is important to mention that there must be a balance between ease of use and the functionality of the app. If the app is easy to use but it does not function as user or customer expectation, it will lead to a low satisfaction level. In generally, perceived ease of use has a direct effect on the attitude towards SST ¹⁸. Ease of use considers as an important factor for measuring mobile SST quality ²³. Thus, the following hypothesis is established:

H5: Perceived ease of use of government mobile apps relates positively to service quality.

Customer satisfaction is important for any service provider. It’s the main factor to build a long last relationship with customers. Customer satisfaction can be impacted by many factors depends on the business and the aim of the organization or the company. As our study focuses on UAE Government Mobile Apps services the main factor affecting customer satisfaction is quality. Service quality intends to influence the level of customer satisfaction. SST quality is an antecedent to e-satisfaction or in other words customer satisfaction is the evaluation or the feedback of customers to the mobile apps services quality ⁷. It is widely supported by a literature review that service quality is the determinant of service satisfaction ²⁴. It is important that quality is not set by managers or leaders, but it is set by customers. We can conclude that customer satisfaction is the result of comparing the product or service performance with customer expectation ²⁵. Therefore, a low customer satisfaction does not mean poor service quality; it may indicate that the service did not meet customer expectations or needs. Meeting customer expectation leads to higher customer satisfaction and leads to further improvements. The following hypothesis is established.

H6: Mobile apps services quality is positively associated with customer satisfaction.

4. Methodology

Therefore, as expressed in Figure 1, perceived usefulness, security/ trust, reliability, enjoyment, and perceived ease of use together define the level of Quality which impacts on Customer Satisfaction.

A questionnaire of a 20-item 5-point-likert scale is developed based on the literature reviewed. Six other questions relate to demographic data. The questionnaire was translated to Arabic to reach a high number of participants. The Arabic questionnaire was translated back to English to insure accurate translation.

The questionnaire is distributed to potential participants through direct message or email where Qualtrics website was used for data collection. A total of 99 people clicked the link of the survey; but only 70 were usable responses.

5. Survey Analysis and Results

• 45 males and 25 Females completed the survey,

• 41 % of participants (age range = 25-30) 31% (age range 18-25).

• 60% of the participants are government employees and 17% are students.

• 61% have bachelor degree and 27% have finished high school.

• Only 8% are not familiar with self-service technology.

Based on the responses frequency analysis of the survey the following information is obtained:

• 10% of the participants have not used self-service technology.

• 46% of people find Mobile Apps enjoyable.

• 51% of the responses indicate that people are satisfied with the quality of the services provided through the Mobile Apps.

• 87% of the participant believes that Apps are useful, 71% thinks that the Apps are secure, 73% see the Apps are reliable,

• 82% feel that it is easy to use the Apps

• As shown in Table 1, the mean score of all items is around 4 implying a high level of customer satisfaction.

• As shown in Table 1, perceived usefulness ranked at the top as the most important followed by overall satisfaction whereas enjoyment ranked lower. Overall all factors were highly ranked (RII>.78).

EFA is done to test whether the theoretical framework is in agreement with the survey structure. Item loadings on each factor are presented in Table 2 shows how the questions are grouped to their corresponding factors and indicate that seven distinct factors are underlying the survey structure confirming the internally consistent of the survey.

As shown by the EFA’s grouping of the questions is quite consistent with the theoretical model except for the questions related to ease of use and satisfaction factors are grouped into a common single factor. Similarly, reliability questions and the single-item quality are also grouped together. Further, the five items measuring the perceived usefulness construct are split into two separate factors.

Constructs’ reliability was investigated through the α-Cronbach. Cronbach's alphas values reported in Table 3 are all higher than 0.7 confirming the consistency of the survey’s seven latent constructs ^{27, 28}.

Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) combines both Confirmatory and Path Analysis among continuous latent variables.

The SEM diagram in Figure 2 translates prior hypotheses about the factor structure. Each of the 20 items (Q7 to Q26) is depicted by a rectangle and loads to only one factor. The single arrow is set from the construct to the item (reflective factor SEM model). For each latent construct, depicted by a circle, one loading was fixed to 1 to give the latent factor an interpretable scale. An unobserved measurement error depicted by a circle is associated to each item. Path arrows between the six predictor variables to the dependent variable Satisfaction are drawn (Al Mansouri, A. Tchantchane & Jawahita).

SEM results; factors’ loading and path coefficients (in bold) are shown in Figure 2. Path coefficients and their p-values’ significance are presented. Critical ratios (C.R.) are interpreted the same way at t-values in standard regression. Overall, SEM path analysis results reveal that ease of use, reliability and security explain user perceived quality with high significance at the 0.01 level confirming hypothesis H2, H3 and H5. Enjoyment and perceived usefulness are not related to user perceived quality; thus H1 and H4 are not supported by the survey. The results confirm the Hypothesis H6 relating user satisfaction to perceived quality.

6. Qualitative Triangulation Analysis

In order to capture a further dimension to this study, three people with a long experience UAE Mobile Apps Self Service Technology were interviewed.

The first person working in a federal organization was asked of what he thinks about the usefulness of Mobile. He expressed that some organizations providing service apps are useful and some are not. The problem that still one needs to go to the organization to complete the process and to check it. He alleged that in his organizations customers come to check the process to get or denied the final approval. Further, the problem that the data in the Service App are not updated regularly as an example to get a letter approval through the corresponding App, it will show that the process is pending when in reality the approval was issued.

The second person working with government Apps typing shop explained that the Apps is his main source of income as many customers don't know or are not familiar with the Apps. He expressed a mixed feeling that some of the Apps are really useful and some are not. Sometimes through Mobile Web service, it would take 7 to 14 working days to receive the service, however when traditional ways are used, it would take only 1 to 2 days. Further, many business people with large families are facing difficulties to apply for some government services online because one has to apply separately for each individual, but with traditional way you all the documents are submitted at once. In addition, that some Apps are not updated regularly which result to bugs.

The third person working on the App said that the App are causing her a lot of problem and headache. The organization rushed the process and didn't follow all the steps. Also the study that they made was not covering all the criteria that they wanted to achieve. One of the main problems is that it gives you a reference number, but when checking the system it shows that the person didn’t apply or it gives a wrong reference number which is related to another person. Many customers complain that the App are slow and taking a lot of time to apply for the service.

7. Conclusion and Discussion

This study shows that ease of use, reliability and security of Mobile Apps have a significant impact on user perceived quality of Mobile Apps leading significantly to satisfaction. In both studies conducted by ^{1, 26}, ease of use has a significant impact on users intention and satisfaction to use the web services. However, the study in ⁹ did not support the significance impact of ease use on user intention to adopt M-government in the UAE.

The study ¹ did not find significant relationship between security and user intention to use web services. Also. our results contradict with the study ²⁴ which did not find a significant impact of reliability on service quality.

However, this study shows that both enjoyment and perceived usefulness have a zero impact on perceived quality and satisfaction. Also both studies ^{9, 16} did not find a significant impact of perceived usefulness on user intention to adopt M-government in the UAE. But both both studies ^{1, 26} found that perceived usefulness has a significant impact on web service satisfaction and intention to use.

This study supports that enjoyment has no significant impact on user intention to use the service by ¹ and contradicts the study by ¹⁶.

The interviews conducted with experienced people in using Government mobile apps reveal serious limitations of the apps in terms reliability, usefulness, and service quality in general. The outcome of the study helps the UAE government to improve their services and providing a tool to measure mobile apps service quality. The study offer groundwork for future researches. During the interviews, fruitful feedback were received concerning the inclusion of other spoken languages, visa application, insurance renewal, Dubai police and Road transport authority services.

References

Appendix