A remittance company headquartered in San Salvador, with more than forty service locations across the country, faced a reputational crisis when a viral social media video claimed, without any evidence, that the company was withholding customer funds because of alleged liquidity problems. The content, widely shared by Salvadoran migrant communities in the United States through WhatsApp and Facebook groups, set off a flood of calls from worried customers in less than 48 hours, along with several online news stories that repeated the rumor without verifying it.
For a company whose business depends entirely on the trust of families sending financial support to their loved ones, the risk was not only reputational but operational: a mass exodus of customers to competitors within days could jeopardize the viability of the business, as well as create a perception problem with the Central Reserve Bank, which supervises this type of institution.
Our team deployed a rapid response protocol: in less than six hours, we coordinated with the company's management a verifiable official statement with liquidity and payment capacity figures, activated direct customer service channels on social media to answer each inquiry one by one, and worked with local digital media to publish fact-checked information that debunked the rumor with objective data. In parallel, we monitored the spread of the original content to identify and contact the accounts with the greatest reach that had made it go viral.
Within ten days, the volume of negative mentions had dropped to residual levels and no serious media outlet was treating the rumor as valid information. The company not only avoided a customer exodus but also saw growth in new transfer accounts in the month after the crisis, thanks to the transparency with which it publicly handled the episode.
