I have a question about classes

I've been working on this project and this problem for a long time. I got understand the istream and ostream of classes well enough, my book is ****, this question will probably be simple for a c++ vet.

I have a class, customer. Its templated. Declare a varible of type customer(newCustomer). When I do cin >> newCustomer it goes through its routin about gathering info, like it should. In the istream function of the class I have it cout << some of the data the user just inputed (for a test). After the istream finishes it goes back to main, then I cout << newCustomer (another test). It prints out like it should except the user information is a bunch of null crap. Any idea whats going on? I just don't understand how c++ works.

Heres the code:

Important segment of main:

Code:

---

        auto customer<void>                        newCustomer;

        cin >> newCustomer;
        cout << newCustomer;
        custTree.insert(newCustomer);

---

istream and ostream fnctions in customer class:

Code:

---

template <class person>
ostream & operator << (ostream &o, const customer<person> c)
{
        o << c.ccNum << "\t"
        << c.fName << " "
        << c.lName << "\t"
        << c.status << "\t"
        << c.prevRentals << "\t"
        << c.cardDiscount << "\t"
        << c.prevRentDiscount << "\t"
        << c.fedTax << "\t"
        << c.netCost << "\t";

        return o;
}

template <class person>
istream & operator>> (istream i, customer<person> c)
{
        auto int tempStatus = 3;

        cout << "Enter Credit Card #: ";
        i >> c.ccNum;
        cout << c.ccNum;

        cout << "Enter first name: ";
        i >> c.fName;
        cout << "Last name: ";
        i >> c.lName;

        cout << "1. Platinum  2. Gold  3. Regular\n";
        cout << "Card status: ";
        i >> tempStatus;
        switch (tempStatus)
        {
        case 1:
                c.status = Platinum;
                c.cardDiscPerc = 0.06;
                break;
        case 2:
                c.status = Gold;
                c.cardDiscPerc = 0.03;
                break;
        default:
                c.status = Regular;
                c.cardDiscPerc = 0.0;
                break;
        }
       
        cout << "# of Previous Car Rentals: ";
        i >> c.prevRentals;

        cout << c.ccNum;
       
        return i;
}

---

custTree is a tree data class. I'm sure it works as I got it from my teacher. The problem lies within myself.
I will include a zip of my entire project if this for some reason isn't enough. Please keep in mind I'm new to C++.

Thanks to anyone who attempts this question!

NOMAD

The zip would be good, I'd like to see where exactly it fails.
One thing up front:
const customer<person> c
should be
const customer<person> &c


I've just realized that this is surely the problem you have. It's not that grave for the << operator, but it makes the >> operator useless (learn a bit about call-by-value and call-by-reference and you'll understand why)