Sometimes the only way to get a customer to understand what you're saying, especially if you use different brands of English, is to spell it out. These stories come from Pinoy Exchange forum's Call Center Bloopers and Boo Boos. You can read more Filipino funny call center stories and call center bloopers here.
If you want to learn the most common phonetic alphabet system, it is used by NATO and starts with Alpha, Bravo, Charlie. Chris has a complete guide to the NATO phonetic alphabet system, as well as a less-militaristic version, on his website. Otherwise, why not make up your own? It may confuse the customer, but that makes it more fun.
Mija tells about a call center agent whose spelling did confuse his customers. She says, "Maybe this is due to the fact that he actually came from a seminary."
For example:
P as in Psalm
E as in Eucharist
I for Immaculate Conception
TSR: Ok sir, we need to check if your PC has a valid IP address.
Cust: And how do you go about doing that?
TSR: Let's open the command prompt, click the start button then select run and type c-m-d.
Cust: c-n-b?
TSR: No sir, c as in Charlie, m as in Mike, d as in Delta.
Cust: Oh, c-m-t!
TSR: No, it's C-M-D.
Cust: c-m-b?
CSR: CMD... C as in customer, M as in must, D as in die!!
There's even a play about the outsourced life!
Photo: Filipino Call Center Forum
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