One of the easiest things you can do to help communicate with hard of hearing people on the phone during Covid restrictions, is learn the phonetic alphabet.
I was reminded of this by a customer telling me her post code was “C for Coffee” (she was actually saying T for toffee and I was late for that appointment! I love being deaf 🙄).
There is very little difference between some speech sounds*, and seeing the lip shape is really helpful, hence phone conversations being difficult
The phonetic alphabet was developed so that the words used cannot be mixed up with anything.
T for Tango - Tango doesn’t sound like other words that start with C, D, B or G which are the letters that T is mistaken for.
Numbers are tricky too. Hard of hearing folk get 2 and 3 mixed up a lot. A lot!
If you run a business that has appointments, then for the love of Mike, please offer a text/email/online booking service, it will help you appeal to the 1 in 7 people with hearing loss.
* This similarity also leads to the strangeness that is the McGurk Effect! See online at: https://youtu.be/2k8fHR9jKVM