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> Stutter once and they think you meant 2 P’s when you just wanted to say a single P. And then it becomes this long drawn out process of “after AF6, it’s just a

> Stutter once and they think you meant 2 P’s when you just wanted to say a single P. And then it becomes this long drawn out process of “after AF6, it’s just a single P, but the rest of it is right” because you really don’t want to have to read out the entire code again Have you tried using the NATO alphabet? I don't know if that would be easier or more difficult for you to say, but it's worth a shot, since it'd be less ambiguous over the phone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_phonetic_alphabet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_phonetic_alphabet

gutnor 8y ago
Generally speaking people working in call centre, or that deal with client all day long, like the NATO alphabet, especially people that have to deal with random code, or need to get names spelled right. People that I know worked in call centre love it, and carry on using it decades after they left that job. It seems a bit more tedious, but the slower pace with reduced ambiguity means you almost never have to repeat yourself. Worth giving it a shot, speech impairment or not.
- amalcon 8y ago
  My name has an unusual spelling, so I always have to spell it on the phone. I've had issues every time I try to use the NATO alphabet for this, because several of the phonetics are names. E.g. someone named Matt might say: "Matt, spelled Mike-Alpha-Tango-Tango" And get the response: "Ok Mike, now I need..."
  - zakki 8y ago
    I am not familiar with NATO standards until I read this post. And I’m not an English native speaker. But what I get from NATO idea is take the first character from the word said in conversation. So when speaking with someone on the phone, sometimes I say “I” as Italy instead of India. And luckily they understand it. You may try “Monaco” instead of “Mike”.
    - buzer 8y ago
      It also avoids similar sounding things, word where it can be hard to figure out what the first letter was & words where the first letter is mute. There is a joke version of the alphabet that messes with all those rules. http://i.imgur.com/3CbAxSp.jpg http://i.imgur.com/3CbAxSp.jpg
  - AdmiralAsshat 8y ago
    I overheard a co-worker once trying to spell out a mailing list address to a customer using a NATO-like alphabet, but he began, "M as in Mary, L as in Larry..." We ribbed him pretty good for that. I even created my own Completely Useless Alphabet from that incident: A as in Aerie B as in Barry C as in Carrie D as in Dairy etc.
mygo 8y ago
I can do the NATO alphabet when speaking to a human, that’s a good suggestion. One thing though, when speaking to a robot, they’re not usually programmed for that. They want exact letters and numbers that their speech-to-text engine can convert. Eventually the robot takes me to a human after it fails enough times but there’s usually a queue, which isn’t always great because the wait times can be very long.

gutnor 8y ago

Generally speaking people working in call centre, or that deal with client all day long, like the NATO alphabet, especially people that have to deal with random code, or need to get names spelled right. People that I know worked in call centre love it, and carry on using it decades after they left that job. It seems a bit more tedious, but the slower pace with reduced ambiguity means you almost never have to repeat yourself. Worth giving it a shot, speech impairment or not.

amalcon 8y ago
My name has an unusual spelling, so I always have to spell it on the phone. I've had issues every time I try to use the NATO alphabet for this, because several of the phonetics are names. E.g. someone named Matt might say: "Matt, spelled Mike-Alpha-Tango-Tango" And get the response: "Ok Mike, now I need..."
- zakki 8y ago
  I am not familiar with NATO standards until I read this post. And I’m not an English native speaker. But what I get from NATO idea is take the first character from the word said in conversation. So when speaking with someone on the phone, sometimes I say “I” as Italy instead of India. And luckily they understand it. You may try “Monaco” instead of “Mike”.
  - buzer 8y ago
    It also avoids similar sounding things, word where it can be hard to figure out what the first letter was & words where the first letter is mute. There is a joke version of the alphabet that messes with all those rules. http://i.imgur.com/3CbAxSp.jpg http://i.imgur.com/3CbAxSp.jpg
- AdmiralAsshat 8y ago
  I overheard a co-worker once trying to spell out a mailing list address to a customer using a NATO-like alphabet, but he began, "M as in Mary, L as in Larry..." We ribbed him pretty good for that. I even created my own Completely Useless Alphabet from that incident: A as in Aerie B as in Barry C as in Carrie D as in Dairy etc.

mygo 8y ago

I can do the NATO alphabet when speaking to a human, that’s a good suggestion. One thing though, when speaking to a robot, they’re not usually programmed for that. They want exact letters and numbers that their speech-to-text engine can convert. Eventually the robot takes me to a human after it fails enough times but there’s usually a queue, which isn’t always great because the wait times can be very long.