FEATURE
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.
HOW DO YOU CONNECT WITH AND SERVE YOUR CUSTOMERS THROUGH THE CONTACT CENTER?
A: 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.
IKER URIONAGUENA
• 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.
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.
" 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
IS YOUR CONTACT CENTER IN-HOUSE? OUTSOURCED? WHY THAT STRATEGY?
A: Our contact center is 100 % outsourced with Concentrix. This allows us to be scalable when volume increases.
ARE YOUR( CONCENTRIX) AGENTS ON-PREMISE, WORK-FROM-HOME( WFH), OR HYBRID?
A: 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.
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?
A: 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.
WHAT WERE YOUR GOALS AND EXPECTATIONS FOR THIS TRANSFORMATION?
A: Our goals were scalability and speed combined with high customer satisfaction( CSAT).
WHAT SUPPLIER( S) DID YOU SELECT FOR IT AND WHY?
A: 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.
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