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Frontline employee authenticity has been investigated in relation to both potentially positive and negative outcomes, but largely from the employee perspective. The current paper aims to investigate frontline authenticity in a sales/service context from the customer perspective, specifically examining the influence of adaptive selling in relation to a customer’s perception of salesperson authenticity. Effects on customer’s perceptions of final benefits and value are examined.

Survey data collected from customers of an insurance firm in South Korea were used to investigate the proposed model. Customer perceptions of salesperson adaptive selling, authenticity, key benefits delivered and organizational value provision were all captured.

The results suggest that authenticity does indeed positively influence perceptions of beneficial outcomes related to a transaction with a …