How Humans and AI in Customer Communications Can Integrate for Success
Gina Armada 
October 3rd, 2024
In today’s fast-changing business world, it’s easy to think that automation—and especially its first cousin artificial intelligence (AI)—is here to replace human jobs. But the truth is a bit more nuanced. People remain at the core of positive change, and the best secret to success lies in blending what humans do best with what machines can do.
As the CEO at MHC, meeting customers is a highlight of my job. Last week I attended Xplor 2024 Summit in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, where I hosted a session about how AI and humans can work together, each contributing based on their areas of strength. Here are some thoughts about how organizations can harness this partnership, especially in generating customer communications. You are also invited to join me for an in-depth discussion on this topic—click here to register!
Where Humans Excel Over Automation
To begin the conversation, we can all agree that machines are great at repetitive tasks. But there are some notable areas where human intelligence, creativity, and emotional insight make a real difference. In the image below, ChatGPT identifies key areas where humans have unique and irreplaceable skills for business success. (I hope you don’t miss the irony here!)
The Benefits of Intelligent Automation
When it comes to producing regulated customer communications, however, intelligent automation offers some important benefits and advantages over humans. With growing demands for personalization, dynamic content, and timely delivery, relying on manual workflows leads to some challenging outcomes:
Disjointed or Confusing Communications
Manual updates across disparate applications can result in inconsistent messaging and branding.
Excessive Document Handling
Duplicated and resource intensive ways of handling and distributing documents can be slow and costly.
Labor-Intensive, Error-Prone Processes
Manual tasks lead to processes that are not only time-consuming but also prone to human error.
Lack of Visibility and Control
Manual steps can create blind spots in workflows, making it difficult to track progress and ensure regulatory compliance.
Slow Response Times
Slow, manual processes can hinder the timely delivery of communications to customers and erode satisfaction and loyalty.
The Solution is Automation ↓
Collaborating for Business Success
In this context, by leveraging machines and automation to handle many of the manual or repetitive tasks required to generate customer communications, challenges are overcome, and employees can focus on the areas where they excel. By adopting automation to collaborate with humans (your teams!) you can deliver some key benefits to both your employee and customer experiences:
Speed to Value
Automating template and form creation, document creation, and compliance checking accelerates the delivery of value to customers.
Contextual Communications
AI can be used to leverage customer data and craft messages that are targeted and compelling.
Productivity Enhancements
AI’s ability to manage workflows, summarize documents, and manage changes allows employees to work faster and more efficiently.
The Wins of Automation
The benefits of automation and AI in customer communications are hard to ignore. For example, businesses that implement document automation can reduce processing time by up to 50% and cut operational costs by 20–30%, according to studies from Forrester and Gartner.
As a people leader in a complex and ever-changing business landscape, however, I’ve learned that success isn’t just about saving time and money. As we learn from our customer’s success story below, organizations that focus on improving customer experience while prioritizing employee engagement to foster innovation, creativity, and strategic growth can secure a competitive advantage and be ready for the challenges of tomorrow.
This, for example, is what occurred in the success story below, where our customer shifted 86% of full-time staff to more value-added work, reduced infrastructure spend by 65%, and boosted overall employee engagement.
The Path to Continuous Improvement: Think Big, Start Small, Act Now
When incorporating automation—especially intelligent automation powered by AI—into your own business environment, it can be difficult to gain traction. It’s also easy to get overwhelmed by the complexity of choosing where to start. The key is to focus on actions that offer the most value. Every touchpoint and process you automate reduces errors, frustration, cost, and risk.
To get started, adopt a “think big, start small, act now” mindset. Reflect on your goals, prioritize your actions, embrace a mindset of continuous improvement, and takes steps to be a champion of change:
The collaboration between humans and AI in customer communications is such an important topic for every business today—to become more lean, profitable, and competitive. In the end, while AI and automation are changing the business landscape, remember that humans remain at the center of this transformation. In customer communications, human employees are still ultimately responsible for communicating with human customers, even as machines help us along the way.
By building an integrated partnership between human intelligence and machine efficiency, you can unlock new levels of success—reducing errors and costs, enhancing customer experiences, enabling innovation, and fostering an engaging culture of continuous improvement in which your employees and organization will thrive.
To continue the conversation, join my session about leveraging AI and automation effectively in your organization—click here to register!
Contact Us
MHC solutions leverage automation and AI to make document creation and distribution effortless. Contact us to discuss your needs and create a comprehensive plan.
CCM SOFTWARE
Discover Our CCM Solutions
Automate the entire customer communication process, from production and assembly to personalization and omnichannel delivery. Experience the difference with MHC. Discover the features and benefits!
Gina Armada
Gina Armada was Chief Executive Officer of MHC until February 2026, bringing over 27 years of experience leveraging technology to deliver business solutions and customer value. Gina led MHC in consistently delivering intelligent workflow and content automation solutions that organizations can rely upon to streamline their operations, optimize productivity, and increase engagement with customers. Gina worked at Accenture until she joined MHC in 2008, serving in multiple roles until she was named CEO in 2019. When Gina isn’t piloting the growth of software solutions and services, she is active in coaching youth sports and loves spending free time with family and friends.
