[gvx]

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]

Having 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.

[mannykannot]

My 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.

[hprotagonist]

digikey phone personnel all speak NATO. it’s wonderful.

[hobs]

First thing I drilled into Apple phone support folks.

[gbacon]

*tree :-)