MHC INTERVIEW
The Shift Toward Orchestrated Communications in Auto Finance

Q: Q1: How has the lending lifecycle changed recently?

Sharon: Let’s start with the lending lifecycle itself because I know in the past when someone would buy and finance a car, it would be fairly paper based. So explain to us what’s changed of late?Bob: So, it is still very much that same model. You go to the dealership, spend quite a few hours there shopping for your car, and then you go through the process of filling out lots of paperwork. And eventually, you get approved for the loan or the lease. You receive an invoice in the mail, and you’ll start making your monthly payments from there.A few years ago, though, it did start to change a bit where, instead of going to the dealership, if you wanted to, you could shop from home. What people found out was that it wasn’t a pure paperless experience either. You could only get the transaction so far. And then you’d have to go back into the dealership and spend a few hours there as you filled out all the paperwork.Most dealerships are still very paper driven, but they’re trying to get away from that. And we’re trying to get away from that in our industry too. We want everything to be more digital.

Q: Q2: Is lending becoming more real time?

Sharon: I understand there are, however, digital transactions triggered in real time. For example, if you’re making a payment then a communication would be triggered by that event. Do you have insights into that?Bob: What you just described is exactly the model everybody wants to move to. They want real-time data and real-time transactions. And if you don’t have a platform that can trigger those transactions, whether it’s a financial transaction or producing a document, you’re really behind the times. You have to be fully real-time for the most part.

Q: Q3: Are communications triggered in real time growing in volume?

Sharon: Do you find then, that you’re less focused on document generation, and more focused on managing these triggered notifications and interactions? Has the communication volume and data complexity really ratcheted up?Bob: Yes, there is a change in the volumes. The core parts of that, though, remain the same. So any time there’s a monthly invoice that’s being produced, that only occurs once a month. But there’s interactions with the platform on a daily basis that need to have real-time data. And especially now that you asked earlier about what are we seeing in the industry? A lot of it’s about AI.You can’t really gain the benefits of AI if you have to wait for batch processing to happen. You want to do that in a real-time environment. So whether it’s a financial transaction or a digital communication being produced, you want to be able to do that real time and avoid batch processing.And it’s really up to the finance company, how they want to interact with their customers. So if they want to have more interaction, they can increase those triggers. If they don’t have that interaction, they don’t have to. But, yes, we’re seeing more and more lenders trying to stay in communications with their customers earlier and more often.

Q: Q4: Are lenders actively working to orchestrate the borrower journey?

Sharon: Right, its all about the orchestration of the journey. How one event will trigger another, and another. Do you find that a lot of lenders are actively working to orchestrate the borrower journey?Bob: Yes. Orchestration is exactly the right word for what lenders are trying to achieve across the borrower journey. Auto and equipment finance companies often rely on many different platforms for origination, servicing, remarketing, and customer communications. That can lead to disjointed experiences when each system produces its own documents, emails, texts, or print files.An orchestration layer helps bring those data sources and trigger points together, so lenders can deliver consistent, compliant communications across channels. It is not just about producing a statement or delinquency letter. It is about interpreting the right data, understanding when a communication should be sent, and creating a more connected borrower experience.

Q: Q5: How will explainable AI impact lending communications?

Sharon: I’ve read about something called explainable AI. Essentially, if your using AI in your model to make a decision, then there’s a requirement for the customer-facing communication to explain what kinds of things the AI has impacted. Do you come across that?Bob: Yes. As AI becomes more embedded in auto and equipment finance, explainability will become more important. AI uses customer data to produce outcomes and recommendations, and some of those decisions may need to be disclosed or explained in customer-facing communications.Now, the finance companies that I talk to, they’re really not sure how far they can take it. You know, it’s a coordinated effort between operations and their legal team to see how much AI they can introduce into their systems and into their customers daily life.You know, 15, 20 years ago they were very reluctant to allow you to self-serve. So they had portals, but they didn’t allow you to do everything on the portals. You could go in and view your balance. That’s about it. Then a few years later, it was wide open. You could go in and make payments, change of address, really whatever you wanted to do that kept you out of the customer service area. So you didn’t have to call in and talk to a person. And I think we’re going see that with AI too, as people get more and more comfortable with it.

Q: Q6: How are high delinquency rates impacting customer communications?

Sharon: I was reading that delinquencies are at an all-time high since the pandemic and that there’s a lot of financial strain on borrowers in terms of having larger loans and having longer repayment.And I know that a vehicles is more than a luxury, it’s really an essential for daily life. I know it’s fairly highly regulated. Can you talk about today’s environment and how delinquencies are impacting customer communications? And if you’re seeing any kind of trends in that regard?Bob: In the old days, if you were delinquent on your account, if you hit a certain number of days delinquency, it ended up in someone’s queue and they just start calling you.Now AI comes into this. The term I use, it might not be the proper term, but I call it compassionate collections, where they’re not chasing you as much as they used to. So they’re using AI to determine, what’s the right time to call this person? What’s the best way to communicate with this person? Do we even have to? Even though they’re late, there’s a trend of we know they’re gonna pay. They’re gonna pay eventually. So why waste all of our resources in chasing somebody that we know is going to pay anyway.That’s where that term of compassionate collections come in. Before it was a shotgun. You just went after everybody. Now, it’s much more targeted. They take that subset of delinquency and they can whittle that down to the ones they know they have to get in contact with.

Q: Q7: How does AI and orchestration reduce unnecessary communications?

Sharon: How are AI and orchestration helping lenders streamline delinquency communications while still staying compliant?Bob: We discussed delinquency communications, which are highly regulated, state driven. How you speak to someone on the phone. When you create the communication, whether it’s a text message or a letter, a digital letter, an email, there’s certain things you can say. There’s legalese that’s built into that too.That’s where an orchestration layer can collects the…right legalese and the right language for that particular correspondence. That reduces manual collection efforts, lowers print and mailing costs, and helps lenders move toward more digital, efficient customer communications. When we talk about digital communications, the orchestration layer is going to be an area of big lift, I believe, with the finance companies. Because it’s a lot of manual effort to collect from somebody. It’s a lot of money sending out physical mail. It’s a lot of money sending out physical invoices. So streamlining that and making it as digital as possible and only producing the communication when needed is going to be very, very important to this industry.

MHC Host
Sharon Jones Malloch, Head of Content Marketing at MHC

Guest
Bob Johnson, Executive Vice President at Odessa

May 12th, 2026

As auto and equipment finance becomes more digital, real-time, and AI-driven, lenders are managing customer communications across increasingly fragmented systems, channels, and servicing interactions.

What was once centered around static statements and batch-generated documents is now evolving into a far more connected communication environment—one shaped by real-time triggers, digital servicing, AI-driven engagement, and growing compliance demands.

In this Expert Insights session, Bob Johnson, Executive Vice President at Odessa, shares how the lending lifecycle is changing and why communication orchestration is becoming increasingly important across modern lending operations.

From real-time borrower engagement and AI-driven servicing to “compassionate collections” and compliance complexity, the discussion explores how lenders are using AI and orchestration to reduce manual servicing effort, streamline communications, lower operational costs, and improve compliance across the lending lifecycle.

In this video, you’ll learn:

How real-time servicing is changing borrower communications
Why fragmented systems make orchestration more important
How AI is reshaping collections, compliance, and engagement
How lenders are reducing manual communication effort and operational costs
Why producing communications only when needed is becoming more important

Key Takeaways

The borrower journey is becoming more digital — but not necessarily simpler.
Real-time engagement is replacing static, batch-based communication models.
Lenders are managing communications across increasingly fragmented systems, channels, and servicing touchpoints.
AI is reshaping collections, compliance, borrower engagement, and operational efficiency.
Compliance and explainability are becoming more important as AI adoption grows.
Communication orchestration is becoming a critical layer for delivering consistent, compliant customer experiences.

Meet the Host and Guests

HOST
Sharon Jones Malloch
MHC Head of Content Marketing

Read the bio

Sharon leads content marketing at MHC, overseeing strategies that fuel sales and demand generation. With more than a decade of experience in customer communications, Sharon brings deep insight into customer pain points, industry trends, and the critical role of solutions in managing regulatory communications. Before joining MHC, she honed her marketing expertise at Doxim, Messagepoint, and OpenText.

GUEST
Bob Johnson
Executive Vice President at Odessa

Read the bio

Bob Johnson is Executive Vice President at Odessa, a provider of technology solutions for auto and equipment finance organizations. Odessa supports lenders across the full lending lifecycle, including origination, servicing, and portfolio management.

Want to Read Instead of Watching the Video?

Below is the complete transcript from this Expert Insights session with Sharon Malloch and Bob Johnson.
Use the accordion sections to expand and explore the discussion in detail.

Q1: How has the lending lifecycle changed recently?

Sharon: Let’s start with the lending lifecycle itself because I know in the past when someone would buy and finance a car, it would be fairly paper based. So explain to us what’s changed of late?

Bob: So, it is still very much that same model. You go to the dealership, spend quite a few hours there shopping for your car, and then you go through the process of filling out lots of paperwork. And eventually, you get approved for the loan or the lease. You receive an invoice in the mail, and you’ll start making your monthly payments from there.

A few years ago, though, it did start to change a bit where, instead of going to the dealership, if you wanted to, you could shop from home. What people found out was that it wasn’t a pure paperless experience either. You could only get the transaction so far. And then you’d have to go back into the dealership and spend a few hours there as you filled out all the paperwork.

Most dealerships are still very paper driven, but they’re trying to get away from that. And we’re trying to get away from that in our industry too. We want everything to be more digital.

Q2: Is lending becoming more real time?

Sharon: I understand there are, however, digital transactions triggered in real time. For example, if you’re making a payment then a communication would be triggered by that event. Do you have insights into that?

Bob: What you just described is exactly the model everybody wants to move to. They want real-time data and real-time transactions. And if you don’t have a platform that can trigger those transactions, whether it’s a financial transaction or producing a document, you’re really behind the times. You have to be fully real-time for the most part.

Q3: Are communications triggered in real time growing in volume?

Sharon: Do you find then, that you’re less focused on document generation, and more focused on managing these triggered notifications and interactions? Has the communication volume and data complexity really ratcheted up?

Bob: Yes, there is a change in the volumes. The core parts of that, though, remain the same. So any time there’s a monthly invoice that’s being produced, that only occurs once a month. But there’s interactions with the platform on a daily basis that need to have real-time data. And especially now that you asked earlier about what are we seeing in the industry? A lot of it’s about AI.

You can’t really gain the benefits of AI if you have to wait for batch processing to happen. You want to do that in a real-time environment. So whether it’s a financial transaction or a digital communication being produced, you want to be able to do that real time and avoid batch processing.

And it’s really up to the finance company, how they want to interact with their customers. So if they want to have more interaction, they can increase those triggers. If they don’t have that interaction, they don’t have to. But, yes, we’re seeing more and more lenders trying to stay in communications with their customers earlier and more often.

Q4: Are lenders actively working to orchestrate the borrower journey?

Sharon: Right, its all about the orchestration of the journey. How one event will trigger another, and another. Do you find that a lot of lenders are actively working to orchestrate the borrower journey?

Bob: Yes. Orchestration is exactly the right word for what lenders are trying to achieve across the borrower journey. Auto and equipment finance companies often rely on many different platforms for origination, servicing, remarketing, and customer communications. That can lead to disjointed experiences when each system produces its own documents, emails, texts, or print files.

An orchestration layer helps bring those data sources and trigger points together, so lenders can deliver consistent, compliant communications across channels. It is not just about producing a statement or delinquency letter. It is about interpreting the right data, understanding when a communication should be sent, and creating a more connected borrower experience.

Q5: How will explainable AI impact lending communications?

Sharon: I’ve read about something called explainable AI. Essentially, if your using AI in your model to make a decision, then there’s a requirement for the customer-facing communication to explain what kinds of things the AI has impacted. Do you come across that?

Bob: Yes. As AI becomes more embedded in auto and equipment finance, explainability will become more important. AI uses customer data to produce outcomes and recommendations, and some of those decisions may need to be disclosed or explained in customer-facing communications.

Now, the finance companies that I talk to, they’re really not sure how far they can take it. You know, it’s a coordinated effort between operations and their legal team to see how much AI they can introduce into their systems and into their customers daily life.

You know, 15, 20 years ago they were very reluctant to allow you to self-serve. So they had portals, but they didn’t allow you to do everything on the portals. You could go in and view your balance. That’s about it. Then a few years later, it was wide open. You could go in and make payments, change of address, really whatever you wanted to do that kept you out of the customer service area. So you didn’t have to call in and talk to a person. And I think we’re going see that with AI too, as people get more and more comfortable with it.

Q6: How are high delinquency rates impacting customer communications?

Sharon: I was reading that delinquencies are at an all-time high since the pandemic and that there’s a lot of financial strain on borrowers in terms of having larger loans and having longer repayment.

And I know that a vehicles is more than a luxury, it’s really an essential for daily life. I know it’s fairly highly regulated. Can you talk about today’s environment and how delinquencies are impacting customer communications? And if you’re seeing any kind of trends in that regard?

Bob: In the old days, if you were delinquent on your account, if you hit a certain number of days delinquency, it ended up in someone’s queue and they just start calling you.

Now AI comes into this. The term I use, it might not be the proper term, but I call it compassionate collections, where they’re not chasing you as much as they used to. So they’re using AI to determine, what’s the right time to call this person? What’s the best way to communicate with this person? Do we even have to? Even though they’re late, there’s a trend of we know they’re gonna pay. They’re gonna pay eventually. So why waste all of our resources in chasing somebody that we know is going to pay anyway.

That’s where that term of compassionate collections come in. Before it was a shotgun. You just went after everybody. Now, it’s much more targeted. They take that subset of delinquency and they can whittle that down to the ones they know they have to get in contact with.

Q7: How does AI and orchestration reduce unnecessary communications?

Sharon: How are AI and orchestration helping lenders streamline delinquency communications while still staying compliant?

Bob: We discussed delinquency communications, which are highly regulated, state driven. How you speak to someone on the phone. When you create the communication, whether it’s a text message or a letter, a digital letter, an email, there’s certain things you can say. There’s legalese that’s built into that too.

That’s where an orchestration layer can collects the…right legalese and the right language for that particular correspondence. That reduces manual collection efforts, lowers print and mailing costs, and helps lenders move toward more digital, efficient customer communications.

When we talk about digital communications, the orchestration layer is going to be an area of big lift, I believe, with the finance companies. Because it’s a lot of manual effort to collect from somebody. It’s a lot of money sending out physical mail. It’s a lot of money sending out physical invoices. So streamlining that and making it as digital as possible and only producing the communication when needed is going to be very, very important to this industry.

MHC INTERVIEWThe Shift Toward Orchestrated Communications in Auto Finance

Meet the Host and Guests

Want to Read Instead of Watching the Video?

MHC INTERVIEW
The Shift Toward Orchestrated Communications in Auto Finance