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Doesn't take long at all and has been pretty handy to me when giving account numbers, tracking numbers, whatever to people over the phone. They do sometimes se
by freshhawk 13y ago
Doesn't take long at all and has been pretty handy to me when giving account numbers, tracking numbers, whatever to people over the phone.
They do sometimes seem surprised that you are using the "offical" words so I gather knowing this is pretty uncommon.
<nostalgia time>I learned it from The Pocket Ref book as a kid</nostalgia time>
- balabaster 13y agoGrowing up in the outdoors and sailing, I learned to use this as second nature when relaying information - it's crazy that when you start doing this on the phone how few people understand it and you have to resort to A like Apple, F like Frank... it feels so childish after the clarity and precision of the NATO phonetic alphabet.
- freshhawk 13y agoInteresting, I've never had people on the phone not understand it. If anything I sometimes get the opposite, they start talking faster and treating me with less of the "yet another moron on the phone" attitude that I'm sure you can't help developing working a call centre. I always thought it was a shibboleth, like the tech support reaction I'm sure people here get occasionally where you can hear them realize they aren't going to have to explain how to click on a menu entry to you and switch scripts after you correctly use a technical phrase. Come to think of it, maybe they assume I was/am in the military. That never occurred to me before.
- andyjohnson0 13y agoI work on software that is used by, among others, the vehicle repair trade in the UK. The phonetic alphabet is commonly used by them to relay vehicle registration numbers over the phone. I've noticed that they rarely use it with customers though.