A two-person proposal team now runs every RFP for Fortune 500 clients through one AI platform.
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The very first RFP processed in production became a $4 million contract.
Completed during the pilot, before any formal training.
Every RFP across ~10 industries runs in one tracked workflow with unlimited seats.
For Harte Hanks, RFPs decide which Fortune 500 clients it wins across North America, Europe and APAC. Its two-person proposal team had outgrown a stale Responsive library and a workaround built on Word and personal ChatGPT accounts. With Inventive AI, the team moved its entire RFP response workflow into one platform. This case study is based on a conversation with This case study is based on a conversation with Kate Tressler Snow, Creative Director + Proposal Development Manager at Harte Hanks.
Harte Hanks is a provider of customer care, fulfillment and marketing services. It manages complex, high-stakes deliverables for Fortune 500 clients across North America, Europe and APAC.Its two-person proposal team needed RFP software for marketing agencies and fulfillment services that could keep up with that global reach.
Harte Hanks coordinates intricate proposals across multiple international markets, but its previous platform was bottlenecking the team. As the company evolved, its Responsive Q&A library went years without a proper audit, leaving past answers irrelevant.
Because the knowledge framework couldn't keep up, the team stopped using it. SMEs and proposal managers exported questions into Word documents, pasted them into personal ChatGPT accounts for drafting, then uploaded the final text back into the system by hand. Seat caps meant the team constantly activated and deactivated users just to collaborate.
Those manual handoffs caused costly errors. In one case, the team lost a bid because female apparel sizes were accidentally left out of a manually assembled response. Harte Hanks needed a real Responsive alternative.
"We're using Responsive, the SMEs are coming in, we're doing all of the work that we can in Responsive, we're exporting it into a Word doc, and then I am literally manually taking the stuff from the Word doc, putting it into my ChatGPT. The bulk of the work that we're doing is actually outside of Responsive and very manual."
— Kate Tressler Snow, Creative Director + Proposal Development Manager, Harte Hanks
To support its global work without adding headcount, Harte Hanks needed an AI-native platform that actively helped the team instead of just storing static text. Inventive AI brought industry context, competitor analysis and compliance agents that flag missing information in real time.
It also solved the collaboration bottleneck with unlimited seats, so revenue operations, sales directors and global strategists could work at the same time. And it replaced the risky ChatGPT workaround with a secure system built for enterprise proposals.
"If we have information in there in two different ways, and it sees that we have duplicates, it'll auto flag it so we can real time say this is outdated or this is wrong and we can literally archive it. We're never putting in information that's outdated. We're never putting information that's wrong. It doesn't hallucinate, which ChatGPT can do."
— Kate Tressler Snow, Creative Director + Proposal Development Manager, Harte Hanks
The first real test was a complex global RFP with 150 questions and narrative requirements. The RFP lead drafted the executive summary and cover letter directly in Inventive AI, alongside the question responses. The team submitted in about three days, during the pilot and before any formal training, and won. It answered a question many proposal teams ask: can AI write an RFP executive summary that holds up for a Fortune 500 buyer?
"We wanted it, and we somehow got it out in like three days. So I think that's the best proof of concept you could possibly have even without training. Well, we won it, so there's that."
— Kate Tressler Snow, Creative Director + Proposal Development Manager, Harte Hanks
Keeping content current across EMEA, APAC and North America takes continuous syncing. Inventive AI's knowledge hub reads source documents directly, including PowerPoint decks and PDFs, so the team no longer depends on a manually maintained Q&A library.
The AI recognizes when the same answer is worded differently across global assets. With strategists working inside the platform, they capture new insights as part of their daily workflow.
"Inventive has the ability to crawl more documents than Responsive did. So we're able to add things like PowerPoint decks, which is where a lot of our information is stored, and PDFs. So I would say already our Knowledge Hub is better than it ever was in Responsive."
— Kate Tressler Snow, Creative Director + Proposal Development Manager, Harte Hanks
By moving RFP response into Inventive AI, Harte Hanks cut out the manual middle work of shuttling content between Word, ChatGPT, and a legacy tool. Automated content curation lets the two-person core team focus on strategy and execution. Its first RFP in production became a $4 million contract.
"I'm just really excited and still super excited that we got the company to agree to partner with you guys because this is life changing. And if you guys ever need anything from me, I've got your back."
— Kate Tressler Snow, Creative Director + Proposal Development Manager, Harte Hanks
Inventive AI helps professional services teams respond to complex RFPs with accurate, cited answers from approved content.
Book a demo to see how Inventive AI handles RFPs like Harte Hanks'.
