Discussion Forum No. 8
Question: “There is no trade-off between customer-response time and on-time performance.” Do you agree?
Explain.
Customer-response time refers to the period between the customer making an inquiry about a product and eventually
making a purchase. This could also be the period from placing an order and then delivering the goods and services
to the same customer. Essentially, customer-response time refers to the period that firms take to respond to its
customers’ needs. On the other hand, on-time performance is a measure of a company’s punctuality. This measures
the effectivity of firms to come true of their promise to deliver goods or render services at the expected time.
Customer-response time and on-time performance are both operational measure of firms’ effectivity and efficiency.
With these being said, I have to disagree with the statement above. There is trade-off between customer-response
time and on-time performance. Firms sometimes strategically set their customer-response time longer to deliver a
prompt on-time performance. They have to forego a shorter customer-response time so that they will have ample
time to manage the delivery of goods given the uncertainties in setup and processing time. Customers will not be
pleased by the long delivery, but the company did perform or delivered as promised. However, this setup is not
recommendable, and management should find ways to reduce these uncertainties in the delivery of goods/services
to improve their performance in the customer’s perspective.