Public Service and CX maturity: What can we learn from Saudi Vision 2030?
- The Aljebari
- 23 hours ago
- 3 min read
Governments in the GCC are quickly changing how citizens and investors experience services as part of national transformation programs. Vision 2030 has made customer experience maturity a key goal in public sector modernization. It shifts the focus from just following processes to measuring satisfaction and trust.
Saudi Arabia’s unified service platforms, like Absher and the National Center for Government Performance (Adaa), illustrate this change. By including service standards, feedback loops, and performance dashboards, ministries are moving from solving problems reactively to designing services proactively. In the UAE, “Customer Happiness” initiatives have made managing experiences a responsibility for the whole government, not just a communications task.
This leads to a more flexible and responsible public service model. Customer experience maturity now acts as both a tool for governance and a measure of competitiveness. It encourages better decision-making, more widespread use of digital channels, and a greater perception of government reliability.
For GCC organizations, improving customer experience maturity needs regular benchmarking, clear ownership of service results, and the use of data-driven decision-making frameworks. Those that find this balance will not only provide better experiences for citizens but also enhance trust in institutions, which is essential for the success of Vision 2030 in Saudi Arabia and beyond.
Key Learnings
Service Experience is a strategic enabler for the Saudi Government Sector
Vision 2030 identified government service delivery as a driver of competitiveness and trust amongst ministries, agencies, and citizens alike. As a result, Service Experience becomes a driver of these influences and provides ample grounds for ministries to be evaluated on their satisfaction and impact rather than purely project completion.
Data is the representative of accountability
Public sector transformation and emergence under Vision 2030 has a heavy emphasis on data transparency and performance. This, combined with the monitoring of feedback in real-time via dashboards, benchmarking against other players in the Kingdom or beyond, and openness in reporting will enable governance tools to emerge from Service Experience.
Citizen and investor journeys are the focal point of Policy Design
Vision 2030 mandates for Customer Journeys and Service Experience to be key components of policy development; designing overall services that are configured to investment, life events and investment pathways as opposed to internal structures.
This overall drive to simplify, and unite the Government processes for citizens and investors is a key priority.
Digital Transformation has to consider Human Elements
The success of the quickly emerging unified portals and AI-driven services has created a new requirement for the Human Element to be protected.
As a nation, Saudi Arabia is well-known for having a personal and genuine approach at doing business: ministries must be mindful of this personal approach not being lost in the process.
Vision 2030 identified government service delivery as a driver of competitiveness and trust amongst ministries, agencies, and citizens alike. As a result, Service Experience becomes a driver of these influences and provides ample grounds for ministries to be evaluated on their satisfaction and impact rather than purely project completion.
10 Unified Portals in Saudi Arabia
Absher
Government-services portal and app from the Ministry of Interior, Saudi Arabia offering broad services to individuals, businesses, and government entities. https://www.absher.sa
Nafath (Unified National Access)
Single-digital- identity / sign-on system via Ministry of Finance, interconnected with hundreds of Government/private platforms. https://apd.gov.sa
KSA Visa (Unified Visa Platform, Saudi E.Visa)
Unified visa-service platform launched to centralize across many agencies for different visa types (tourism, work, business, etc.). https://visa.visitsaudi.com/
Khadamati Portal
A unified portal for employees of the Ministry of Justice in Saudi Arabia to access their services. https://khadamati.moe.gov.sa
Unified Military Industries Portal
Unified Government Portal (via Social Development Bank) - An initiative to connect agencies for social financing via a partner programme. https://www.sdb.gov.sa/
General Authority for Military Industries (GAMI)
A sector-specific unified portal for the military industries sector: centralised e-services across licensing, standards, etc. https://www.gami.gov.sa/
Unified Electronic Portal (Balady)
A municipal service oriented unified portal; captures local and regional citizen services. https://balady.gov.sa/
Open Data Platform (Open.Data)
A centralized portal for government datasets, transparency, data reuse; powered by Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA). https://open.data.gov.sa/
Etimad Financial Portal
A unified platform for government budgeting, contracts, payments and procurement across agencies and vendors. https://portal.etimad.sa/
General Authority of Foreign Trade (GAFT Digital Portal)
A unified platforms code portal to integrate trade-services and business-support functions. https://gaft.gov.sa/
