The other side will either know the NATO alphabet or be able to understand it anyway. It was designed to be interpreted and used by non English speakers, since most of NATO doesn't/didn't speak English. I've used it dozens of times, zero errors.
It's really good enough to be considered a sort of spoken language Golay code.
^---- yes, this is exactly it. Especially since most CSRs you're going to be talking about don't have English as their first language and don't have the same cultural background as you.
That's why the people I know who use it at work don't use it while on the phone with Comcast.
I’m reminded of an English comedy sketch, one police operator is saying “Tango Whiskey Foxtrot...” on the phone, the detective next to him “Tango.. Tango.. Diet Coke & Fanta”
Is that first one an "H" or an "E"? Is that second one an "E" or a "V"?
That's the problem with home-made solutions, across any form of lossy medium (aka static or accents), the home-made replacements are not always distinct enough.
To which the recipient might be thinking E, E... no wait the first E must have been something else then... ah H, so: H E... slow down a bit... why isn't this person using the same phonetics as the other callers...?
