‘Be yourself’. ‘Only those who are authentic are well received’. Authenticity is a popular word in communication guides. After all, the mantra goes, if you don’t come across as ‘real’, you won’t have any followers – and certainly no customers. There is a certain irony in the demand for ‘authenticity’ when social media is often characterised by posts that present reality in an exaggeratedly positive light.

Despite this, or perhaps because of it: The call for honesty is justified because the internet, and social networks in particular, have fundamentally changed customer relationships. Overall, they have become more spontaneous, fast-moving and unpredictable.

This development has also improved the position of customers: they are no longer tied to providers in their immediate vicinity, but can make comparisons across regions at any time. At the first hint of doubt, the next offer is just a click away. And complaints no longer have to be settled in the shop, but are sometimes negotiated in public, in comments and review portals.

Customers usually interact with a brand several times before deciding to make a purchase. Clicking the ‘Like’ button is also a way of paying in advance for perceived value, along the lines of ‘I believe what you tell me, so as a user I support your visibility’.

With companies more ‘in the shop window’ than ever before, it is vital that they are consistent in everything they do, from their vision and culture to their interactions with customers. If a brand’s promises are too far removed from reality, difficulties are almost inevitable. Good examples of such conflicts are the current controversy surrounding the shoe manufacturer On, or the loss of customer confidence that heralded the end of Credit Suisse.

The difficulty with authenticity is that it is neither easy to achieve nor easy to measure. The perception of authenticity is on the customer side, it is subjective and cannot be easily established by assertion. It is the sum of many individual, sometimes independent, personal perceptions.

The smaller the company or the range of products it offers, the easier it is to formulate and position its identity in a way that is comprehensible to others. The larger the structure, the more important it is to have a foundation of values and to monitor external perceptions through regular surveys and consistent tracking of the various communication channels, including sentiment analysis.

When a company succeeds in establishing a high level of credibility, it pays off in many ways: in terms of sales and customer loyalty, media coverage and reputation, and recruitment.

Even if the concept of authenticity is relatively new, the underlying demand for credibility is ancient: ‘Pacta sunt servanda’, the ancient Romans said. Promising only what you can keep was as worthwhile then as it is now.