Insurers warned they will do a Woolworths unless they adapt to fill digital customer gap

That was one of the warnings from the panel during a recent Post webinar, "Building brand loyalty in a digital age," held in association with Reevoo.

Citing Woolworths and Kodak as examples of business failures that insurers should be mindful off, Axa Business Insurance managing director Darrell Sansom said: "If you don't adapt to where your customers are going someone is going to fill that gap; and in the digital age means it is more of a risk than it ever has been.

Because you have got lots of great new start-ups like Brolly, and if we don't respond we are going to lose market share."

Reevoo founder Richard Anson added: "If you go back twenty years ago, business did not need to be as customer centric as they need to be today; but in this social media-dominated market you absolutely need to put them first. And as long as you are monitoring their behaviour changes, you should achieve longevity. If you stop doing it and forget about it, you risk not being around for long."

"For lots of companies it is what you do online that attracts people to that product, so you almost have to design things around that customer," continued TSB head of digital user experience and content Lorraine Donington.

"So for in banking, when they do change banks it is not because of high street branches, but the app and functionality and user experience, so people have to adapt to that."

Brolly founder and CEO Phoebe Hughes agreed and mentioned Atom and Mondo as examples to back up Donington's point, before talking about how brands can straddle different generations: "When you become an advocate of Apple products you live and breathe them; and your kids will be using Apple products too, because you will pass the baton on to them."

Hughes concluded: "But what you are also seeing is acquisitions, because big brands realise they cannot get to the customers they want too, so they buy a start-up that has managed to do that and incorporate it into their own brand."

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