From the perspective of employees working for public service agencies, we analyzed the causal relationship between service quality, relationship quality, design quality, customer satisfaction, and trust in public services. We conduct statistical analyses on the quality attributes we derived from a critical incident technique(CIT) analysis and build a measurement model, which has a second-order hierarchical structure. Survey data was collected from social work, childcare, and healthcare

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... Using a structural equation modeling method, we identify a causal model and simultaneously estimate factor loadings and path coefficients. We find that all the quality dimensions are antecedents to satisfaction and then satisfaction precedes trust. The results show that service quality and design quality mediate in parallel the effect of relationship quality on satisfaction and both relationship and design qualities have stronger effects on satisfaction rather than service quality.