“You are here. So, are we good?” he asked me.
“No. We aren’t good. I really don’t trust you or your team.”
I was standing at the counter, speaking to a service agent at a car dealership. Within the last 12 months, I brought my car in for servicing and diagnostics twice because the engine light would come on as I went up a hill, and the car would struggle and threaten to stop.
The first time, they found nothing.
The second time, I brought the car for service and diagnostics before a 13-hour road trip to Houston, TX. I wanted to be sure the car was in good working order.
Again, they found nothing.
So, my husband and I packed up the car and headed to Houston.
How I Lost Trust
After five hours of driving, the car did that thing… the engine light came on, and it chug-chug-chugged, struggling to make it up a small hill. We pulled over. Turned the car off, which had worked in the past, and tried again. Off we drove…until 20 minutes later when the engine light—and other warning lights—came on again. We pulled over just before the car stopped on its own.
Luckily, we were just outside Lubbock. We called AAA, then we searched for a dealership and a hotel. It was too late to try to get the car fixed, and we had two hours of driving before we arrived at the hotel we’d booked in Abilene. We resigned ourselves to spending the night in Lubbock, arriving at the dealership when it opened, and hopefully being back on the road by 10 a.m. If we didn’t start driving by that time, we would be late for an event in Houston.
AAA picked us up with a tow truck and allowed my husband, me, and our 85-pound dog into the cab. The nice lady driver dropped me and the dog off at the hotel, then she and my husband drove the car to the dealership, which was two blocks away. There was a car rental place just down the street, in case we needed it.
In the morning, my husband walked to the dealership. We were told they couldn’t even look at the car for three days. I called our normal dealer’s service department. I spoke to a manager. I was livid.
“I trusted your experts to find the issue. Now we have to rent a car and rush to get to Houston on time. You had two chances to figure out what was wrong and fix it. You have inconvenienced us, cost us extra money for hotels and rental cars, and potentially caused us to miss an important event.”
With everything, including the dog, packed into a rental car, we left our car behind for repairs and got back on the highway. The Lubbock service people called a few days later; they found the issue with no problem and would have the car fixed by the time we drove back through Lubbock on our way home.
I trusted them. As for the service techs and reps back home…not so much. I had lost trust.
Repairing Trust
And now, here I was again…face to face with a service rep, asking for a mysterious noise in the back of my car to be diagnosed before another road trip to Houston.
So, no. We weren’t good. I was still angry—and out $400 for the rental car and extra hotel charge. And I was mistrustful.
Here’s the thing: the service manager could have responded to my requests to be reimbursed for that $400 and apologized for not finding the problem that left us stranded on the side of the road in the dark in Lubbock and forced us to rush to Houston the next day. But he didn’t.
Instead, he brushed me off. He didn’t return my calls.
Neither his service technicians nor his actions instilled trust in me—or repaired the trust I had lost.
And this new service rep didn’t try to repair the trust either. Instead, he spoke to me with an attitude.
5 Easy Ways to Break Someone’s Trust
It’s super easy to break someone’s trust. If you aren’t aware of how that happens, you are more likely to find that people don’t trust you. You will have broken their trust without realizing it.
To give you a sense of how easily trust is broken, here is a short list of ways it can happen. Once you are aware of them, you can avoid doing things that make people mistrust you.
- You can break someone’s trust by not doing a good job. This was the case with the service techs at my regular car dealership. Basically, when you pay someone to provide a service, you are saying you trust them to do it…and do it well. If they don’t, that is a breach of trust.
- You can break someone’s trust by not doing what you say. If you tell your friend you will meet for lunch, but then you don’t show up or call last-minute to say you have another commitment, that damages trust. The same is true if I say I am going to increase the price of my Nonfiction Writers’ University, and then I don’t. Basically, I’m indicating my word is worthless, I can’t be counted on, and you shouldn’t trust me.
- You can break someone’s trust by lying to them. This is the age-old relationship issue. Your partner cheats on you with someone else, doesn’t tell you, and then you find out about the affair. Now you don’t trust them. Or your husband doesn’t tell you he created a huge debt because he gambles. Or your wife says she stopped drinking, but you find a paper cup that smells like wine in her home office garbage pail. Similar issues can occur with friends, family, bosses, and co-workers. Repairing this type of trust issue can prove challenging.
- You can break someone’s trust by misrepresenting yourself. Obviously, if you say you are a real estate agent, but you are not and never have been, clients will lose trust in you fast. However, the same holds true when you tell the person you are dating that you love the outdoors, but, in fact, you hate it. Or when you tell your partner that you are straight when you are, in fact, gay. Or when you say you are an expert at something, but you are not. Any time you claim to be someone you are not—or even act as if you have those qualities—you risk losing people’s trust when they discover you are not who you say you are.
- You can break someone’s trust by using their words against them. If your work colleague shares something personal with you, trusting that you will keep it confidential, and then you share it with other people in the office, you break their trust. The same holds true if your partner tells you something that makes them feel vulnerable, and you throw it back at them the first time you have an argument. A more subtle way of breaking someone’s trust is when they share a relationship issue that is bothering them—or something about your behavior that triggers them, and, instead of showing understanding and a willingness to work on the issue, you tell them it is all their fault—or, even worse, you tell them they are trying to make you the bad guy or say it is all their fault.
Integrity Maintains Trust
One of the primary ways you can ensure people trust you—and that you trust in yourself—is to remain integral at all times.
Integrity means aligning your daily behavior, thoughts, and words with your core values. It is also firm adherence to morals or doing the right thing for the right reasons. And integrity means being true to who you are and keeping your commitments to others and yourself.
Sometimes, you know something is the wrong thing to do, and you do it anyway. Maybe your reasons seem sound, such as not wanting to hurt someone’s feelings or believing it is more beneficial for you than not doing it. But deep down inside, you know that action lacks integrity and stands to break someone’s trust in you.
Do what you know is right.
Remain aligned with your values and keep your word to others and yourself.
Be honest, forthright, and thoughtful of others.
Do your best and admit when you are wrong.
These are good rules to live by if you don’t want to break people’s trust in you.
Have you broken someone’s trust? How did it happen, and how could you repair the situation? Tell me in a comment below. Please share this post with those who may benefit from reading it.
Image courtesy of carballo.
