Assign the decision, not the task label
“Customer support” is not one kind of work. It contains retrieval, classification, drafting, persuasion, policy judgment, exception handling, and emotional context. Break the role into decisions before assigning it to a person or agent.
Good agent work
Agents are well suited to repeated research, normalization, routing, drafting, reminders, documentation, and checking defined conditions. These tasks benefit from speed and consistency when inputs, tools, and boundaries are explicit.
Good human work
People should retain consequential decisions, ambiguous exceptions, empathy-heavy conversations, negotiation, policy interpretation, and final accountability. Human review is also the right default while a new automated path is being evaluated.
Design the handoff
The real operating advantage lives in the handoff: what evidence the agent provides, who receives the exception, how urgent it is, what actions are allowed, and how the resolution improves the playbook.