Optimising customer service in high-demand leisure operations: the Ilusiona case

The challenge

Ilusiona is one of the leading family leisure operators in Spain, with more than 100,000 m² of entertainment space, a presence in 30 of the country's main shopping centres and more than 20 million visitors a year.

That volume means a high-demand, business-critical customer service operation, concentrated at weekends and on public holidays. The challenge was to provide continuous, efficient service, consistent with the brand experience, at the times of greatest operational pressure.

Starting point

Before working with Xternus, Ilusiona's customer service model had serious limitations:

• No phone or email coverage at weekends or on public holidays, exactly when visitor numbers peak.
• A high volume of unanswered calls and overflow.
• A limited customer experience at the most critical moments.
• The in-house team struggled to absorb demand even on weekdays, especially at certain times of day.
• In some periods, more calls went unanswered than were handled.

This created operational instability and a direct risk to how customers perceived the service.

The Xternus solution

Xternus put in place a scalable operational support model, designed to cover the busiest times and reinforce the existing operation. It included:

• Fast onboarding and training of agents specialised in customer service.
• Full weekend coverage with 2 full-time agents, where there had been none before.
• Dedicated service on public holidays, filling a critical gap in the operation.
• Weekday reinforcement with 4 additional agents, focused on the busiest time slots.
• Gradual coordination with each Ilusiona centre to improve the quality, consistency and personalisation of responses.

This model absorbed activity peaks, stabilised the operation and professionalised customer service without adding to the in-house team's workload.

Results

The Xternus model brought clear, measurable improvements in responsiveness and operational efficiency.

Weekends

• Between 494 and 549 cases completed per weekend.
• Only 10 to 18 unanswered calls.

Public holidays

• More than 300 call and email cases resolved per holiday.

Weekdays (handled by Xternus)

• Between 80 and 110 cases handled per day.
• Only 4 to 8 unanswered calls per day.
• Effectiveness between 93.48% and 96.15%.

Combined results for the last month

• Cases completed (calls + emails): 4,681.
• Overall effectiveness: 99.85%.
• Errors recorded: 7.
• Unanswered calls: 266.
• Call answer rate: 94.70%.

These results show a significant improvement in responsiveness, operational stability and the customer experience, even under heavy operational pressure.

A long-term relationship

The collaboration between Ilusiona and Xternus is set up to grow the service steadily, along these lines:

• Longer service hours on weekdays.
• More agents on weekdays, weekends and public holidays.
• Fewer overflow and unanswered calls.
• New channels, such as WhatsApp.
• Keeping errors close to zero.
• More personalised service through closer coordination with each Ilusiona centre.

Conclusion

This case shows how a well-structured operational outsourcing model lets organisations with heavy footfall and demand peaks provide efficient, stable customer service that matches their value proposition. Xternus works as a strategic partner, supporting Ilusiona in continuously improving its operation and protecting the customer experience at the most critical moments.