Learn how to schedule and set up chat for your eWebinars so you can balance the number of webinar sessions you offer against how quickly you want to respond to chat.
If you are wondering how to schedule and staff your eWebinars so you are able to respond to chat in a timely way, there are three common approaches our customers take based on:
- How comfortable they are with automation
- How available they want their webinars to be (frequency of sessions)
- How immediately they feel they must respond to chat messages
Choose the strategy below that best meets your needs and goals and then scroll down to find out how to set up your eWebinars accordingly:
Strategy #1: Minimal automation (Limited session availability + Immediate chat responses only)
Strategy #2: Partial automation (Moderate session availability + Timely chat responses)
Strategy #3: Full automation (Maximum session availability + Flexibility to respond as quickly desired) — RECOMMENDED
NOTE: We tend to see a natural progression of customers who start with minimal automation slowly moving to full automation as they experience how eWebinar works and come to realize:
- Customers prefer to be able to join sessions at their convenience, which causes attendance rates and customer satisfaction to go up.
- As long as customers get a timely response to their chat messages, they feel heard and are happy. Our autoresponder helps by managing their expectations..
Once you have decided which chat strategy you wish to follow, you may want to refer to our Chat FAQ before setup, which answers questions like:
Strategy #1: Minimal automation (Limited session availability + Immediate chat responses only)
- Schedule: Limited session availability (in a fixed time zone)
- Chat: Immediate responses only
- Good for: Companies just starting out with automation
Typically, companies who follow this approach were regularly doing live webinars — maybe a few times a month — before they started using eWebinar.
They were drawn to automated webinars because they are pre-recorded, which for them meant removing the stress of someone having to present, ensuring the content is always exactly the same, and virtually eliminating the technical problems that can ruin live webinars. Outside of that, they simply wanted to recreate the frequency and overall experience of their live webinars.
Though they realized webinar automation could allow them to schedule sessions more frequently, they didn’t like the idea of offering more sessions than they had in the past, because they were afraid they wouldn’t be able to respond to chat messages as quickly. They felt that if the webinar was going to be pre-recorded, then chat needed to be live and super responsive.
When they transitioned from live webinars to automated webinars, this is how they set up their Schedule and Chat in eWebinar:
HOW TO SET THE SCHEDULE:
|
Frequency: |
Once or maybe twice a week (4-8 times per month) |
|
Time zone: |
Fixed time zone (not the local time zone of attendees) |
|
Just-in-time sessions: |
Disabled |
|
Replays: |
Disabled |
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Moderators: |
Multiple moderators or one moderator using a centralized email (i.e. support@yourcompany.com) |
|
Moderator notifications: |
Enabled (Email, browser, and/or Slack notifications) |
|
Welcome messages: |
Enabled for scheduled sessions “Hi { first name }! If you have any questions during the webinar today, we’re here to answer them.. 😀” |
|
Autoresponder |
Enabled (After 5 minutes and as a fall back only) “We got your message, but it's taking us a bit longer than usual to respond. We’ll try to get back to you during today’s webinar. If we can’t, we’ll send you an email before the day is through. Thanks for your patience!” |
WHAT TO SAY IN YOUR WEBINAR SCRIPT:
“Our team will be monitoring chat today during the webinar, so if you have any questions, type them in the chat box and we’ll get back to you as quickly as we can.”
Strategy #2: Partial automation (Moderate session availability + Timely chat responses)
- Schedule: Moderate session availability
- Chat: Timely responses
- Good for: Companies who are more comfortable with automation
Companies who follow this approach often started using eWebinar with minimal automation but came to realize the benefits of making sessions available for prospective attendees as often as possible: higher attendance rates and customer satisfaction. The decision to change to this approach often came after seeing how easy it was to manage and stay on top of chat while also no longer having to worry about presenting a webinar live.
While their comfort level with automation may have risen, they still want to place limits on the number and type of sessions they offer so they can still mostly respond to messages from attendees in real time via live chat.
This is the most nuanced approach to understand, so here is a concrete example of how a company could put it in practice:
This (fictional) company is based in the U.S. where the majority of its customers are located. They schedule their webinars three times a day every weekday at 11AM, 1PM, and 4PM EST (which is 8AM, 11AM, and 2PM PST), so that they happen at convenient times of day for most customers across the country.
Since they have support teams on both coasts, they can respond to chat from 9AM EST to 6PM PST, which translates to 9AM to 9PM on the East Coast and 6AM to 6PM on the West Coast.
They turn on just-in-time sessions, so that attendees can effectively join a session on demand, but set their hours of operation to limit them to that twelve hour window. The increased number of sessions makes it easier to respond to chat messages since they arrive in a manageably staggered way throughout the day.
With regard to replays, the company either decides to disable them altogether or leave them enabled but disable chat for them. If they choose the latter, people can register for and watch a replay at literally any time of day but, with chat disabled, it is clear their questions are being sent by email and they should not expect a response in real time.
Here are what the settings for Schedule and Chat would need to be to support the above scenario:
SCHEDULE SETTINGS:
|
Frequency: |
2-3 times a day on weekdays (at times of day that work in the time zones of most customers) |
|
Time zone: |
Fixed time zone (not local time zone of attendees) |
|
Just-in-time sessions: |
Enabled (but limited to happen within set hours of operation) |
|
Replays: |
Disabled (or Enabled but with chat disabled for replays) |
|
Moderators: |
One moderator using a centralized support email (so the whole support team can respond) |
|
Moderator notifications: |
Enabled (Email, browser, and/or Slack notifications) |
|
Welcome messages: |
Enabled for scheduled sessions and just-in-time sessions (but not for replays) “Hi { first name }! Let me know if you have any questions during the webinar. 😀” |
|
Autoresponder: |
Enabled (After 5 minutes as a fall back only. Will not appear for replays since chat is disabled) “We got your message, but it's taking us longer than usual to respond. If we don't get back to you during the webinar, we'll reach out by email. Thanks for being patient! |
WEBINAR SCRIPT:
“All questions will be answered through chat, so please make sure to use the chat box to send any questions or comments you might have. If we can’t get back to you during the webinar, we’ll reach out to you by email as soon as possible.”
Strategy #3: Full automation (Maximum session availability + Flexibility to respond as desired) — RECOMMENDED
- Schedule: Maximum session availability
- Chat: Flexibility to respond as quickly (or as slowly) as you wish
- Good for: Companies who want to maximize the benefits of automation
This is the strategy we recommend and the one we follow ourselves. It is good for companies who want to experience the full benefits of webinar automation. (It is why we built eWebinar.)
Companies who take this approach realize that making their webinars available around the clock — effectively on demand — is what customers want since they can access the content at their convenience. This level of availability comes with secondary benefits like increased attendance rates, higher conversion rates (since you are able to capture prospects at a moment of high intent), and higher customer satisfaction. (Look at the session drop-down menu on the registration page of our demo to see an example of this schedule setup.)
Companies who follow this approach also realize that, while it is powerful to engage with attendees via live chat whenever possible, customers are perfectly happy getting answers to their inquiries later via email — after their webinar is over — as long as they are told that is what may happen (by the autoresponder) and that they hear back in a timely way.
Here is how to set up your Schedule and Chat to get the most out of automation:
SCHEDULE SETTINGS:
|
Frequency: |
3-4 convenient times every day (or every weekday and maybe one weekend day) |
|
Time zone: |
Local time zone of attendees |
|
Just-in-time sessions: |
Enabled (On demand or Every 5 - 15 minutes) |
|
Replays: |
Enabled |
|
Moderators: |
Multiple moderators or one moderator using a centralized email address |
|
Moderator notifications: |
Enabled (Email, browser, and/or Slack notifications) |
|
Welcome messages: |
Enabled for all session types “Hi { first name }! Let me know if you have any questions during the webinar. 😀” |
|
Autoresponder: |
Enabled (After 2-3 minutes) “We got your message, but it's taking us longer than usual to respond. If we don't get back to you during the webinar, we'll reach out by email. Thanks for being patient! |
WEBINAR SCRIPT:
“All questions will be answered through chat, so please make sure to use the chat box to send any questions or comments you have and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible. If you don’t get an immediate response, you’ll hear back from us by email.”
If you have questions about any of the above strategies, please contact us at support@ewebinar.com. Regardless of the approach you decide to take, we are excited for you to experience the power and benefits of webinar automation!