Why Hotlines Don’t Work: Fearful Users

Users fear retaliation or invalidation.

This is the second of five common pitfalls to avoid when implementing a hotline, whether that’s a corporate hotline to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse or a emergency services hotline or even a school or campus hotline.  To read about the other pitfalls and why we think we know something, go back to the summary post.

When users fear retaliation, hotlines are not used.  Emphasizing the anonymity of a hotline implementation and showing how any identifying information is stripped from the data before it flows through the automated forwarding system is critical for use. An Adeona hotline implementation includes quarterly training for all users: employees, vendors, customers, and others to ensure success.

In human trafficking cases, victims are often prosecuted for crimes, and feel as though their complaint is invalidated.  With the Adeona hotline, all tips are anonymous and victims cannot be distinguished from any other tipster, so any kind of bias or discrimination is eliminated and tips can be analyzed for the information contained within them rather than for the individual who is submitting.