This afternoon I answered a call from a woman whose identity I can't even protect because she refused to tell me who she was. She called to notify me that our subscription call center was calling her, in an attempt to contact a subscriber that she claimed had moved. I asked her if she had called customer service. She said she had. I asked her if I could take down her name and phone number and she refused. I could not give her the information she desired at that moment because I needed to look for it, so I told her that if she could not give me her information, I would have to put her on hold. I put her on hold, got the information she wanted, went back to her call, she had hung up.

I hadn't a way to contact her and haven't heard from her since. Had she given me her contact information, she would have been helped. I had no desire to put her on a mailing or call list or to harass her further by abusing her personal information. Still she did not trust me.

Is there a way to build trust with customers once it has been abused by other agencies and call centers? Is there a solution to this problem? Has it existed in other call centers before? Let us know what you think.

--Amy Ouzoonian