It's amazing how often businesses lose trust for the same exact reasons: over-promising, under-delivering, or just completely ignoring feedback. It makes you wonder if they're even paying attention.
Whats the #1 thing a brand has done that made you instantly lose all trust in them?
What's the fastest way a brand has ever lost your trust?
byu/Upbeat_Sign8277 inEntrepreneur
Posted by Upbeat_Sign8277
34 Comments
I had a software company promise a feature for ‘next month’ like 8 months straight. Just kept moving the goalposts every time someone asked.
Lost me completely when I realized they were straight up lying to keep people subscribed.
Fake testimonials on their website + hidden ‘pricing’ gotchas.
I became an Instantly hater when cancelling the subscription still didn’t cancel the inbox charges. They kept charging me for inboxes for like 2 months before I had to reach out to their support to just cancel it completely.
Got ghosted by customer support multiple times.
Any claims that they put anything other than shareholder value first. I hate being lied to.
Generally just poor customer service looses my trust. And likewise the opposite I find is true.
I worked with commercial airlines at one point. Our customer satisfaction score was generally around 50, if your flight was cancelled it dropped to around 10. But interestingly enough if you handled that situation with good customer service; proper information, contact details, new accommodations / flights etc it jumped to 80
duolingo – “AI first” – they were doing SO well on social media, and then BAM! One wrong post and it’s all down the drain.
Robinhood. That one was savage
That’s the quickest way to lose trust , it’s like being baited in with one price and blindsided at checkout.
U-Haul’s “$19.95” rate that jumps to $45 with surprise charges is a classic example, and Dunkin’ recently sparked outrage with an unexplained “retention fee” on customers’ receipts.
Research backs this up too, hidden or opaque fees can erode customer trust faster than almost any other mistake.
So yeah, if I see a brand pull that move? Trust? Gone
They delete bad reviews or don’t post them period.
Years ago, Quora took our private notes and turned them into publicly viewable. Decided they were just another bunch of money hungry tech bros who would treat their customers without respect.
Nike making me have to jump through a million hoops just to have the honor of buying your $200 shoes. This is after being a Nikehead for 15 years
A Microsoft update broke all of our systems…
We converted the entire organization to Mac/Linux and it’s been much much better..
Bending the knee to Trump.
I think the most egregious one that comes to mind is the Star Citizen video game and its company Robert’s Space Industries. If you look it up they’ve only made promises since their successful kickstarter, raised almost a Billion dollars I believe and are still in ALPHA.
If you look it up it’s a lot worse than I’m making it seem
Cracker Barrel trying to change their logo
Bought my house in June ‘22. They had redone the kitchen in like ‘19+- with all Samsung (fridge, range, microwave) besides the dishwasher (Bosch). Within a year or two the microwave broke. Almost exactly a year ago the fridge went out. The range is still working but it’s being weird. In my 20 years at my parents house I think they had replaced all of the kitchen appliances a single time.
I had a local burger joint that was popular for their huge burgers and fry portions change the rules on their ‘free burger’ program. You know the deal.. buy 9 get the 10th for free or something like that. Anyway I had one every week and of course I go to redeem my card and they say ‘oh sorry, now it is a free fry’
Their burgers were great but their brand instantly became worthless to me as they did not honor their word.
Verizon business phone line. When the business I worked at signed up, I was the guy to call and set it up. Over an hour to sign up. Got the first bill and it was huge. Called, took an hour to get through. They said they would fix it. They never did. Had to call every month for a discrepancy in the bill. After 8-10 months of overcharges and partial refunds, Finally changed to Comcast business. Great, now Verizon runs a special 3 years later, $200 gift cards if you sign up and perks. The owner falls for it, I don’t want to go near it. Over ruled. Back on the phone for an hour to sign up. They say they will mail 2 gift cards for our troubles last time. I’m relieved when the owner of the company says I can have both $200 gift cards because of all the trouble. Call back the next month because we haven’t received the gift cards yet, told me that they don’t have any references to gift cards in my history, I won’t get one let alone two. I’m beyond pissed. Have to call back in two months to cancel because they pulled the same shit with overcharges. My boss apologizes and agreed that we shouldn’t have done that again. Right.
Political affiliation
I used to have ab iPod video. Putting videos on it required iTunes and it was a big hassle. Soon later it got stolen. Never bought Apple again
Oooo no mention of Sony yet. Well then, my pleasure:
Over the last 25+ years I’ve spent $100M+ on IT purchases for companies, and never a dime to Sony. Just doing my part as a lifelong punishment for this one, which I’m happy to keep reminding people about, forever.
Sony was caught in 2005 having had developed a rootkit that would infect your computer in order to enforce it’s music copyright. This is when people would copy CDs using a Windows machine as a form of piracy.
Highlights on how this went wrong:
– they didn’t tell you they were doing this
– the software used parts of open software commercially in a way that is likely to have been illegal. (I think the laws were still being figured out and IANAL)
– the software was written so poorly that it opened holes in Windows OS that malware was then able to exploit to infect people with real viruses.
– it intentionally messed with / broke your ability to copy CDs.
– they hid it from you so you couldn’t see or remove it.
– after being caught, this went all the way to US Congress, and then were forced to address it. Until then, they did nothing to change things.
– the uninstaller they were forced to create installed another app that was also intentionally difficult to remove, was intended to do the same thing as the first one, and was as poorly made as the first one, which resulted in more vulnerabilities that were then again exploited by malware.
2 years went by before they stopped doing this in 2007. I’m going to NOT give them the benefit of the doubt, and say it was because music over CD was on its way out / someone more intelligent figured out how to protect music on CDs without creating this kind of mess / the multiple class-action lawsuits eventually took their toll where it was too expensive for them to continue, even though they wanted to.
Yeah, so fuck Sony forever. I saw you try to enter the corporate laptop space, and I want you to know I was part of your failure, and that it was intentional.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal
Bitcoin. Years ago when it disappeared from owners accounts, or something like that, and there was no accountability or way for owners to get it back.
Also Google when I got a Google phone. I literally just turned on my old Moto G Fast today, and that little $100 phone is just as good as the $600+ Pixel 6a. Slightly slower but runs apps just as well.
DeWalt- back to back drills went up in smoke after 1st use
ibkr . costs.
Subscription based everything!
Crazy
Not me, but customers of Target. Turns out people actually like looking for deals psychologically even if the overall price is the same or even higher than it would’ve been with flat prices.
Southwest fucked up everything. Enough said.
Honestly. If your ad interrupts something I’m trying to watch on YouTube you can fuck right off and die in a freak bath/toaster accident.
Microsoft trying to push copilot and trying to make us buy new hardware.
Nope. Gave away my surface devices, got myself a Linux laptop, closed all my accounts, and even bought a lifelong license of BricsCAD to replace AutoCAD because it runs on Linux. I run my business now out of European and Open Source software mostly.
The only reason I have not deleted my google account entirely is because I simply don’t know how to.
Elons right arm twitch ruined Tesla for me
Synology
Locked their NAS systems to only Synology branded drives. Excuse: better control over the hardware. – my ass. They are white labeled Toshiba drives priced double in some regions.
A local high end restaurant that we would go to several times a month added an additional charge to the bill.
It was some kind of bullsh** title like excess fee. I don’t always look at the itemized charges but this time I did. I asked the server what it was and was told that they had to have the manager explain it to me.
I just said never mind. Please tell the manager I will never return to this restaurant.
It would have been fine if it was disclosed upfront but it was not.
A certain sticker company where the CEO used the customer list to share his private views on politics.
I’m not even opposed to a company having a public opinion on something, but I didn’t sign up and agree to receive your emails just so that you could use it as a platform to spread your own personal views.