Which statement best captures whether quality assurance is more important than cost reduction for ABC?

• A. Cost reduction is always more important than quality assurance.
• B. Quality assurance should be ignored to keep costs down.
• C. Quality assurance may be more important in the long run because poor quality could damage trust and sales, even if cost control also matters.
• D. Both are equally unimportant to customer trust.

Answer: (C)

Quality is what keeps customers coming back and helps a brand maintain a good reputation. If you focus only on cutting costs, you risk letting quality slip, which can lead to more returns, complaints, and damaged trust. Over time, that loss of trust can hurt sales far more than the short-term savings from cutting quality. So, acknowledging that quality assurance may be more important in the long run reflects the reality that customer confidence and repeat business drive sustained profitability, while cost control remains important but should not come at the expense of quality. The other options miss this balance by either prioritizing cost over quality, ignoring quality altogether, or claiming neither factor affects customer trust.