Supply chain teams face two persistent operational challenges that drain productivity and inflate costs: manual document compliance processes and reactive customer service workflows. These problems aren’t new, but their impact has intensified as shipping volumes grow and customer expectations for responsiveness continue to rise.
Document compliance represents one of supply chain operations’ most time-intensive yet critical functions. Teams routinely spend way too much time each week chasing essential shipping documents, such as proof of delivery (POD) documentation, yet still struggle with low compliance rates, leading to payment delays, claims disputes, and approval process breakdowns.
In addition to wasting precious hours, these challenges make it difficult for growing organizations to scale. Document compliance requirements increase proportionally with shipping volume, consuming more and more expensive human resources without providing a clear path to operational efficiency gains. When your team is manually tracking down documents from dozens of carriers with varying levels of technological sophistication, the process becomes a bottleneck that affects everything downstream.
Customer service teams in supply chain operations face a similar scalability challenge. A significant portion of daily interactions involve routine inquiries — status updates, shipment tracking, and basic claims processing — that require immediate attention but offer limited opportunities for relationship building or strategic problem-solving.
The situation becomes more complex during periods of operational disruption, when inquiry volumes can surge dramatically. While supply chain disruptions are an inevitable reality — the World Economic Forum notes the “near-constant turbulence” in modern supply chains — the real challenge lies in maintaining consistent service levels regardless of external circumstances.
These routine interactions, while necessary, prevent customer service professionals from focusing on high-value activities like complex dispute resolution, relationship management, and proactive communication during critical shipment issues.
Current conditions in the labor market make these operational challenges even more difficult to overcome. ManpowerGroup’s research indicates that 76% of employers globally struggle to fill job vacancies, with supply chain and logistics roles particularly affected. This scarcity means that manual processes, which can cause bottlenecks even under optimal staffing, become critical gaps when positions remain unfilled or turnover is high.
The financial implications are likewise giving supply chain leaders headaches. Organizations need solutions that can scale with volume while controlling per-transaction costs, whether that’s document processing or customer interactions. Manual processes inherently limit this scalability, creating a ceiling on operational efficiency that becomes more problematic as business grows.
These challenges consistently surface in conversations with supply chain leaders across industries. Teams tell us they’re either spending too much time chasing down documents or forgoing the opportunity to dispute claims altogether. In customer service, we hear about routine customer inquiries overwhelming teams, leaving them distracted when high-priority issues arise or when key relationships need attention.
That feedback drove us to develop targeted solutions for these specific pain points: Polly and Cassie, our newest Digital Workers.
Polly’s primary purpose is to automate the end-to-end collection of critical shipping documents. She proactively requests documents like PODs from carriers, follows up on missing items, and validates that documents are associated with the correct shipments.
Her approach adapts to carrier capabilities, working through APIs for technologically advanced partners and email communication for others, ensuring comprehensive coverage regardless of your carrier mix. Early adopters in our pilot program report reducing manual document collection tasks while accelerating payment cycles through improved document completeness and timeliness.
Cassie’s core purpose is to handle routine customer inquiries and automate the validation of on-time in-full (OTIF) and over, short, and damaged (OS&D) claims. She monitors shipments continuously, provides instant responses to standard tracking inquiries, tailored updates according to customer requests, and automatically validates the completeness of claims when customers file.
This automation allows human customer service professionals to focus on complex disputes, high-priority requests, and key relationship management. Organizations using Cassie typically see substantial cost reductions per customer interaction while maintaining or improving response times, even during high-volume periods.
Both Polly and Cassie leverage FourKites’ real-time shipment visibility and carrier network connectivity to understand operational context and coordinate their actions intelligently. This integration means that they’re making informed decisions based on actual shipment statuses and historical patterns.
The broader impact extends beyond individual process improvements. These AI agents enable supply chain organizations to:
Polly and Cassie join Alan, Sam and Tracy, our existing AI specialists, as part of FourKites’ growing Digital Workforce. This expansion reflects how we’re addressing the full spectrum of routine coordination tasks that keep supply chain teams stuck in an endless cycle of reacting to problems rather than focusing on strategic work.
Since introducing Tracy and Sam in February, organizations have used these digital workers to autonomously handle over 85% of shipment exceptions while improving on-time delivery performance by more than 15% and reducing global inventory holdings — results that demonstrate the tangible impact of well-designed AI automation in supply chain operations.
When we think about the future of supply chain operations, we see technology and human expertise working together more effectively. AI handles the repetitive coordination work, while supply chain professionals dive into the strategic thinking, relationship building, and complex problem-solving that actually moves businesses forward. That’s the kind of partnership that creates a lasting competitive advantage.
Want to learn how you can transform your supply chain with AI? Download our executive guide.
