Taking Off With the Contact Center

Airlines are in the business of taking customer journeys. And they comprise two key steps that are taken together.

There is the physical piece of carrying their customers safely, quickly, and making every effort to do so on time, and with a reasonable amount of comfort at market-tolerable fares.

Then there is the customer engagement piece from the first point of contact, like for information and booking, through any flight changes, delays and cancellations, and to post-flight issues like lost luggage.

Like most other transportation providers, airlines must ensure a single, up-to-date source of truth at all touchpoints: the contact center, both online and through the agents and the counter and gate staff. They also must enable swift, seamless interactions on all channels, both in-person and virtual.

But providing quality customer service is not inexpensive. In a highly competitive environment, airlines must watch every cent. Especially the ultra-low-cost carriers that thrive on volume by carrying value-conscious-and-optimizing customers to popular destinations.

So how do the airlines enable a customer-attracting-and-retaining excellent customer experience (CX), knowing how conditions change? In particular, the ultra-low-cost carriers?

The Volaris Experience

Volaris provides an excellent example. It is an ultra-low-cost airline that prides itself on offering customers high-quality service and a wide range of products.

Based in Mexico City, and founded in 2006, Volaris flies to 74 destinations in Mexico, the U.S., Central America, and South America on a fleet of 155 Airbus aircraft.

It is reportedly Mexico’s largest air carrier; it carried over 28 million customers between January and November 2025 and over 281 million customers since its inception.

To learn more about how Volaris serves its customers, we had a virtual conversation with Iker Urionaguena, Senior Manager of Customer Care.

Q. How do you connect with and serve your customers through the contact center?

Our contact center addresses all information inquiries or service requests throughout the entire journey - from the moment the customer is considering purchasing a ticket - to any post-flight needs.

Our center is made up of multiskilled agents, divided into five mostly-digital channel-based teams designed to maximize productivity and reduce bottlenecks. There are teams for:

• Public social media.
• Private social media messages and WhatsApp.
• Ticket follow-ups.
• Cases from consumer protection institutions.
• Live customer voice calls from the IVR.

There is a robust ecosystem that enables real-time connection between all operational areas and the contact center, allowing everyone to stay informed about what’s happening.

“In a traditional call center, an agent handles one call at a time. But in digital channels...a chatbot can handle over 90% of frequent questions...” —Iker Urionaguena

At the same time, the contact center serves as the company’s eyes and ears, reporting in real time everything occurring on social media and in the media so that actions can be taken promptly.

Q. Is your contact center in-house? Outsourced? Why that strategy?

Our contact center is 100% outsourced with Concentrix. This allows us to be scalable when volume increases.

Q. Are your (Concentrix) agents on-premise, work-from-home (WFH), or hybrid?

Our agents work on a hybrid plan in the contact center. Working remotely is a reward for excellent work done; those agents with room for improvement lose this benefit and go to the office.

Q. You mentioned live customer voice calls. Is phone now the exception? Have you shifted your customer service to primarily digital channels? If so, why did you make that move?

We sell flights up to 18 months in advance. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, nearly every customer wanted to change their reservations at once. It was a crisis for airline call centers; no one could handle 18 months of customer volume in 48 hours.

At the time, we were piloting our digital service with a small bot in WhatsApp and handling some customer requests through social media.

That’s when we decided to scale it to a more efficient model. So, we picked asynchronous channels – private social chat and public social chat apps and web chat - with greater market penetration that allow our agents to manage four to five conversations simultaneously instead of separate calls or emails.

In a traditional call center, an agent handles one call at a time. But in digital channels (social media, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger), a chatbot can handle over 90% of frequent questions or even check in passengers. For more complex cases, AI can help agents manage multiple conversations simultaneously.

Q. What were your goals and expectations for this transformation?

Our goals were scalability and speed combined with high customer satisfaction (CSAT).

Q. What supplier(s) did you select for it and why?

We first selected Emplify to answer questions on public social media. We chose it because it is also the platform that our marketing team uses to upload campaigns.

We then chose Verint for WhatsApp, private social media, and web chat. We selected the company because their solutions allowed us to achieve our goals and outcomes.

Q. Outline the implementation. What steps did you take?

The first step was to integrate all our customer service cells into a single area with unified KPIs and training. This allowed us to build one multiskilled team that could scale.

From there, we moved into digital channels, including an AI bot that could contain a percentage of conversations. When the bot was unable to resolve issues, we used selected channels that enabled us to respond more efficiently, handling multiple conversations simultaneously 24/7.

“Like any digital transformation, ours required a mindset shift. The agents’ resistance has faded as we have involved them in the solution: and they have seen that their work has become easier.”

These features and methods improved the CX by being faster and eliminating the need to repeat the conversations as in traditional email and voice channels.

Finally, we implemented a push-notification strategy so customers could proactively self-manage instead of reacting after the fact.

Q. How did you integrate the digital channels with the voice channel?

We reserved the voice channel for sales calls and gradually migrated all service calls to digital channels. In the IVR, we added deflection options so customers could manage their own requests or be assisted through digital channels.

Q. How do you respond to customers’ inquiries with the AI tools?

On the Live Agents platform, we use an AI-managed assistant that provides accurate, on-the-spot answers based on our policies and the customers’ language (English or Spanish).

Q. Are your in-person counter and gate customer service staff connected to the platform and tools? Did this change with digital transformation and if so, how?

Yes. They are connected to the platform and tools to ensure they have all the information to solve customer requests. When we made the digital transformation the airports’ staff engaged with more prepared customers, so, as a result, the time they spend at the counters and gates is less.

Q. What, if any issues, did you encounter and how were they resolved?

Like any digital transformation, ours required a mindset shift. The agents’ resistance has faded as we have involved them in the solution: and they have seen that their work has become easier.

We created an AI filter for agents:

• Incoming messages are summarized by AI.
• AI consults internal policy databases to ensure up-to-date responses.
• It suggests a reply.
• It translates if needed.
• The agent simply reviews and sends.

What used to take 10 minutes - reading, translating, checking policies, drafting a reply - now takes seconds.

Q. What have been the results?

The “Triple Crown” of CX. Consistent digital conversation’s growth, improved CSAT, and reduced costs. We’ve also seen a decrease in voice volume as our customers switched to digital.

Q. What are your next steps for your customer service?

The next steps are to continue implementing AI use cases that allow customers to self-manage without having to wait in line, provide an experience as if they were interacting with a real person, and to better understand our customers to provide personalized service.

Q. What recommendations do you have for other contact centers that are looking to make a similar transformation journey?

I recommend starting step by step: identify the repetitive processes customers request most and work on making them more efficient. Little by little - and without stopping - you will see results quickly.