[irahul]

> I needed to spell my first name (David) out to them using the NATO phonetic alphabet.

Did you just say "Delta Alpha..." or "D as in Delta, A as in Alpha"?

I can assure you the first one would confuse the hell out of most of the Indians(I am an Indian living in India).

Some of the NATO phonetic alphabets would complicate matters even further - Quebec, Zulu, Yankee. Zulu is a special one, considering Z isn't pronounced "Zee" in India(G is "Gee" and there is no "Zee") - it's called "Zed". So when you say "Zee" as in "Zulu", the support staff is going to have a hard time figuring out what on Earth was that. This is pure speculation - most likely support people undergo some training and they have a basic understanding of western accent and pronunciation.

The safer bet is simply saying the alphabets "Dee a vee eye dee", or better still use short, widely known words as mnemonics "D as in Doll, A as in Ant, V as in Van..."

I often have to resort to phonetic alphabets. Though sometimes it becomes problematic when the mnemonics I come up with confuse the support staff even more:

Me: "Dee..Ummmm Dee as in Dumbledore"

Support Staff: "????"

[rdl]

Anyone not understanding NATO phonetic alphabet has no business working in a call center (or using a telephone, in general), even if English is not his or her native language.

[shabble]

Whenever I try to use the NATO codes, I invariably forget at least one of the letters I need to use. So it's all going happily "C for charlie, A for alpha, Dammit, what's P again? P for...umm....argh...papa!"

That's as a caller though, I've never worked in a position that requires me to take calls from the public. I've often been met with pleasant surprise by call-centre staff when I use it to clarify non-obvious spellings, and always request a read-back check.

[kiiski]

Why not? I think you overestimate how common NATO phonetic alphabet is. I, for example, don't know it and I still can use a telephone without problems. (I'm Finnish)

[tedunangst]

If you're getting paid to communicate with people using the NATO alphabet, you should know the NATO alphabet. (Or the company should hire people who know it. It's not strictly the call workers' fault that they can't communicate.)

[kiiski]

But rdl said "using telephone in general" (which I assume was meant in the context of speaking with customers) and people do that even if they weren't hired specifically for communicating.

[tedunangst]

Yeah, that may be pushing it, not sure how general they really meant.

[rdl]

Yeah, I didn't really mean "as a telephone end user"; I meant "in a professional telephone-based job, especially one in data entry", although I'd consider it to be one of the basic communications skills people should learn just as people, too.

It was chosen specifically to work through bad communications channels and diverse accents, especially if you use the specific pronunciations required for the words (kay-beck for quebec, etc.).

[dholowiski]

When I worked on a helpdesk, a poster with the NATO alphabet was standard issue for every new employee, as well as a thorough explanation of when to say Zed and when to say Zee. But that was nothing compared to when we started supporting Australians. We had to start a Wiki for Australian to Canadian/US translation.

[tibbon]

Pretty sure I always go with D as in Delta, unless I'm on the phone with someone who I'm fully aware will know what I'm talking about (various friends, etc who will do the same thing).

They understood it well enough, but from my POV I was shocked, because never in my life did I have to spell my first name. I know in the US to always make a clarification of the spelling of my last name.

The normal line I give people in the US when they are looking up my account (perhaps at at bank) is, "My name is David Fisher, with no 'C' in Fisher" (since some spell if Fischer) and that normally does the trick.

You do make a good point however that just because the NATO phonetic alphabet is standard for NATO, doesn't mean it is something understood worldwide, anymore than I'd understand Kanji.