Email notifications / automations to address contacts in a personal way

I have captured the custom contact field salutation

I would love to address

• Female contacts as: Dear Ms Smith
• Male contacts as: Dear Mr Jones
• Companies as: Dear customer
• Blank records as: Dear customer

How have you solved this?

We have already tried:

1. salutation under customer fields plus liquids (two different kinds if and case). The first 2 options always look good (in whatever order I have them), but not all 4.
2. salutation under customer fields plus salutation under ticket fields plus email notification: this doesn’t work as the email notifications will always add the last name which I don’t want in the company and blank case.

Running out of ideas…