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Anything that needs to be read over the phone should probably be written out using something like the NATO phonetic alphabet, split into smaller chunks if neede
by gvx 2y ago
Anything that needs to be read over the phone should probably be written out using something like the NATO phonetic alphabet, split into smaller chunks if needed: "The code? It's kilo eight niner; one three mike; delta echo lima."
- 8372049 2y agoHaving come from a military background where using that is second nature, I'm constantly surprised how rarely I meet civilians who understand it effortlessly. When picking up a package I say "the code is Oscar Foxtrot three-fife" and you see the person processing for a long time to extract the first letter of the word. I've started saying "OF, that's Oscar Foxtrot, 3-5" to help them out. In other words, asking a customer/consumer to be able to recite something in phonetics is not realistic in most cases. Fortunately the code already takes this into consideration and removes ambiguous characters.
- hprotagonist 2y agodigikey phone personnel all speak NATO. it’s wonderful.
- hobs 2y agoFirst thing I drilled into Apple phone support folks.
- mannykannot 2y agoMy experience in the USA is that if I don't include the phrase "as in" (as in "X as in Xray") most people still will not realize what I am doing (the alternative "for" can be confused with the digit.) I also ask them to check my readback of key information they have given me and vice-versa; usually that works well.
- gbacon 2y ago*tree :-)