The tech support for a certain large computer manufacturer, who shall remain nameless... but their initials start with an H and end with a P, recently stole more than eight hours of my life. Yep, that’s a whole work day’s worth of my life that I’ll never get back.
Sound familiar? It should.
Anyone who has ever owned or been responsible for any significantly complex piece of technology and/or equipment (read: magic) has at some point called tech support or customer service. Calling tech support/customer service is never fun. No one likes to spend their already limited time waiting on hold while the Borg support-system gives them the run around for the better part of a day.
Unfortunately sometimes we just don’t have any other choice.
What was that?
There is one thing you can be sure of when calling support - at some point you’re going to have to read off a ticket/issue number, product number, street address, or any number (pun totally intended) of other seemingly random numbers. And you can be fairly certain that you’ll have to repeat yourself more than a few times as the guy/gal on the other end of the line will inevitably mistake a "B" for a "D"... or something similar.
Me - The number is 1-2-3-D-F-G-4-5-6
Support - Yes, that was 1-2-3-B-F-E-4-5-6
Me - No, it is 1-2-3-D-F-G-4-5-6
Support - Ok, so it’s 1-2-3-B-F-G-4-6-5
Me - No. It is 1-2-3-D-as-in-dog-F-as-in-foot-G-as-in-girl
Support - Ah, yes sir. That was 1-2-3-D-F-G-4-5-6
Me - Yes. That is correct!
Can I have the last minute of my life back?
No, you can’t. It doesn’t work that way. But you can try to avoid this type of confusion right off the bat.
How you say? I’m glad you asked because that’s what this whole rant has been about.
Use a phonetic alphabet
After going through just such an exercise for about the tenth time in a single call it suddenly struck me. I should just speak phonetically any time I’m spelling something or reading off a long alphanumeric identifier. Brilliant!
Being the total war movie and Vietnam War junkie that I am, I’m pretty familiar with the most common phonetic alphabet around - the NATO phonetic alphabet. So the next time the conversation went something like this.
Me - The number is 1-2-3-Delta-Foxtrot-Gamma-4-5-6
Support - Yes, that was 1-2-3-D-F-G-4-5-6
Me - Yes. That is correct!
Wow, that saved like 30 seconds! Multiply that by the dozen (or more) times you’ll have to do the same thing for some other piece of information and you could trim considerable time off you call.
Unless you have a military background, or you’re just a geek for such things, it might take you some time to get comfortable with talking that way. But before long it will become second nature.
Cheat Sheet available
If you want to practice, or you’re lazy and just want the cheat sheet, I’ve created* a PDF from the above chart (via the original SVG image).
[ DOWNLOAD ]