Between 1 April 2020 and 31 March 2021 all major metrics showed increased engagement, as brokers have used the forum as a way of communicating with their peers throughout multiple national lockdowns.

The number of individual broker sessions on the forum grew by more than 42%, to 214,519, the number of pages per session increased from 5.71 to 6.16 and the average time on the site rose by more than 6% to 7 minutes 38 seconds.

Overall, brokers spent more than 27,000 hours active on the forum throughout the year.

Donna Hopton, director at cherry, said: “We are really pleased that the cherry forum has been able to provide a platform for brokers to ask questions and bounce ideas off each other throughout this challenging period.

“Because the main forum is ‘adviser only’ it provides the only environment within which advisers feel secure to engage in honest, open dialogue.

“The feedback we’ve had from brokers is that forum engagement, or just observation, is always important, but has proven particularly valuable at a time when they haven’t been able to interact in offices or events.

“Access to cherry is free and as more brokers use the forum, we are confident it will become an even more integral part of their working day.”