The public and private chats can get quite crowded during webinars, making you run the risk of missing out on good questions from your audience. WebinarGeek’s Q&A feature rectifies this problem by dedicating a sidebar tab solely to questions and answers. The functionality can be configured to accept questions from different types of participants, giving you the option to only have webinar team members define questions or let viewers ask questions as well.
This article is about the Q&A feature during live webinars. Automated and on demand webinars also support the Q&A feature, but work a little differently due to the lack of live broadcasting. Please check out our article about simulated Q&A for information on use with automated and on demand webinars.
What is a Q&A session?
Q&A stands for ‘Question and Answer’, meaning that a Q&A session is all about allowing your audience to pose questions which you can then answer in a structured manner. While this is also possible through use of the public and private chats, the Q&A feature offers a more streamlined approach that is especially useful for crowded webinars.
Another boon of the Q&A functionality is that your audience can choose which questions they want answered through the use of ‘upvotes’. Each viewer can upvote the question(s) they’re curious about.
The following are some things you can configure to personalize your approach to questions:
Which attendees can submit questions.
The Q&A feature can be customized to allow questions from only webinar team members, or webinar team members and viewers alike.
Which questions are answered and when.
As an example, if you configure the Q&A feature to only accept questions submitted by webinar team members, your moderators can select questions from the public and private chats to forward to the host, allowing them to filter questions that have already been answered and deciding the best time.
How you answer questions.
Submitted questions can be answered either through text or through a live answer, spoken directly during the webinar.
Q&A modes for live webinars
Live webinars offer three modes of Q&A, which can be configured prior to the webinar and swapped between on the go during the live broadcast. They are:
Disabled
The ‘Disabled’ option makes it so that viewers cannot see the Q&A tab. Presenters and webinar team members can see the tab, but it’s inactive until someone enables it.
Restricted
The ‘Restricted’ option makes it so that viewers can see the Q&A tab, but cannot submit questions. Only presenters and webinar team members can initiate or repost questions. This setting can be configured to send a copy of each question to your email address. If you do so, the configuration will be kept even if you swap between modes during the live webinar. Read more about that in this section.
Public
The ‘Public’ option makes it so that everyone is able to see the Q&A tab and submit questions, viewers included.
Tip! Check out the ‘Tips & tricks’ section of this article to find good ways to use the different modes!
Configuration before the webinar
First of all, you’ll want to configure the type of Q&A you want to use during the webinar prior to the live broadcast. This is done in the webinar wizard. Don’t worry, you’ll still be able to change the mode during the live broadcast. Follow these steps:
Navigate to your webinar.
Click on 'Edit webinar'.
Navigate to the 'Webinar' section.
Choose 'Q&A' or the ‘?’ icon within the 'Webinar' section.
Choose the Q&A type you want to use.
You can read more about Q&A configuration prior to the webinar here. This article also addresses Q&A configuration for automated and on demand webinars.
Forward questions to an email address during live webinars
During live webinars, the Q&A function also offers you the option to forward all received questions to your email. Enabling this allows you to easily keep track of which questions were asked during the webinar without needing to review the webinar statistics. Please read this article to find out how to configure this.
Tip! This setting is saved even when you select a different Q&A mode, which means that you can swap between modes during the automated webinar and still keep the configuration.
Changing the Q&A mode during the webinar
The Q&A mode can be changed at any time during the live webinar, allowing you to swap between modes on the fly. This is perfect for times when you, for example, want to limit Q&A sessions to certain parts of the webinar.
Follow these steps to change the Q&A mode during a live webinar:
On the webinar page, click the Q&A tab.
Click the icon depicting a question mark in a speech bubble with a cog wheel.
Select the Q&A mode you want to use.
How to see which Q&A mode is currently active?
You can always review which Q&A mode you’re currently using in the Q&A tab.
Receiving and submitting questions
The Q&A mode dictates who can submit questions for the webinar.
When using the ‘Restricted’ Q&A mode, only webinar team members with the proper permissions will be able to submit questions for Q&A. This also means they can forward questions in the public and private chat from the audience to the Q&A function. Both co-presenters and moderators have these permissions by default.
When using the ‘Public’ Q&A mode, anyone can submit questions, including the viewers of their own accord. This often means more questions, so it could be too much when it comes to particularly crowded sessions.
Whenever there is an unanswered question, an ‘unread’ indicator will show up on the Q&A tab.
Questions submitted by webinar team members
When using the ‘Restricted’ Q&A mode, only webinar team members with the proper permissions are able to submit questions for Q&A. Both co-presenters and moderators have these permissions by default. Oftentimes, these will be questions they forward from the audience’s messages in the public and private chats, but they can also ask questions of their own.
Questions submitted by webinar team members show up with the ‘Team’ label next to their name.
Submitting a question as a webinar team member
Webinar team members can submit a question by following these steps:
On the webinar page, click the ‘Q&A’ tab.
Type a question in the textbox.
Press ‘Enter’ on the keyboard or the arrow icon to submit the question.
Questions submitted by viewers
When using the ‘Public’ Q&A mode, every participant is able to submit questions for Q&A. This often means more questions, so it could be too much when it comes to particularly crowded sessions.
Questions submitted by viewers appear like this:
Check out our ‘Viewing experience’ article for more information on this from an attendee's point of view!
Turning a public chat message into a question
When using the ‘Restricted’ or ‘Public’ Q&A modes, webinar team members can forward messages from the public and private chats as a Q&A question. This is ideal for questions that your team believes would be good to answer with as much attention as possible.
Follow these steps to transfer a message from the public chat to a question:
On the webinar page, open the ‘Public chat’ tab.
Hover the mouse over the message you want to forward as a question.
Click the icon depicting a speech bubble with a question mark.
The sidebar will automatically switch to the Q&A tab.
Optionally tick the box next to ‘Post as yourself’ to anonymize the question. If you do this, the question will show as submitted by the team member. Otherwise, the question will display the viewer’s name.
If you want to edit the question, simply edit the text in the text box.
Once the question is ready to be submitted, press ‘Enter’ on the keyboard or the arrow icon to submit the question.
The question has now been submitted!
Turning a private chat message into a question
When using the ‘Restricted’ or ‘Public’ Q&A modes, webinar team members can forward messages from the public and private chats as a Q&A question. This is ideal for questions that your team believes would be good to answer with as much attention as possible.
Follow these steps to transfer a message from the private chat to a question:
On the webinar page, open the ‘Private chat’ tab.
Open the private chat you want to forward a message from.
Hover the mouse over the message you want to forward as a question.
Click the icon depicting a speech bubble with a question mark.
The sidebar will automatically switch to the Q&A tab.
Optionally tick the box next to ‘Post as yourself’ to anonymize the question. If you do this, the question will show as submitted by the team member. Otherwise, the question will display the viewer’s name. This is highly recommended for questions from private chats!
If you want to edit the question, simply edit the text in the text box.
Once the question is ready to be submitted, press ‘Enter’ on the keyboard or the arrow icon to submit the question.
The question has now been submitted!
Answering questions
Questions submitted through the Q&A feature can be answered in two ways:
Live answer
Answering the question live prompts a pop-up above the video for all attendees. You can then address the question in speech during the live broadcast. This is ideal for the most important questions!
Text answer
Text answers allow you to answer the question through text. The answer will appear below the question in the Q&A tab, visible to every webinar attendee.
Answering a question with a live answer
Follow these steps to respond to a question with a live answer:
On the webinar page, open the ‘Q&A’ tab.
Find the question you want to give a live answer to and click ‘Start live answer’.
The question will now appear as a pop-up for all viewers and you’re ready to give your live answer.
Stopping a live answer
Once you’re done answering the question, it’s time to stop the live answer. Follow these steps:
On the webinar page, find the live answer pop-up on top of the video.
Click ‘Stop live answer’.
Resetting a live answer
A question can only be live answered once, but the live answer can be reset if you made a mistake or want to add anything to your earlier answer. Follow these steps to reset a live answer:
On the webinar page, navigate to the ‘Q&A’ tab.
Find the question you want to reset the live answer for.
Click on the three dots next to the question.
Click ‘Reset live answer’.
You’ll be able to start a new live answer after resetting it.
Answering a question with a text answer
Follow these steps to respond to a question with a text answer:
On the webinar page, open the ‘Q&A’ tab.
Find the question you want to answer in text.
Type your answer in the text box below the question.
Press ‘Enter’ on the keyboard, the arrow icon or ‘Answer with text’ to submit your answer.
The answer will show up below the question in the Q&A tab for all attendees.
Deleting a text answer
Text answers can always be deleted so that you can redo them in case you’ve made a mistake. Follow these steps to delete a text answer:
On the webinar page, navigate to the ‘Q&A’ tab.
Find the question you want to reset the live answer for.
Click on the three dots next to the question.
Click ‘Delete answer’.
Click ‘Delete answer’ again in the confirmation pop-up.
The answer is now deleted and no longer visible for any attendee. You can also provide a new answer to the question.
Question upvotes
When there are tons of questions still unanswered, it may be difficult to identify which are the most important to answer. That’s why we’ve added an upvote system to the Q&A tab, where attendees can vote for which questions they want to see answered the most. The number of upvotes is visible to everyone, but nobody can see which specific attendees voted for which questions.
This is where you can see the number of upvotes for a question as a webinar team member:
Deleting questions
Sometimes, you may want to delete a question you’ve received when you aren’t planning to answer it, or if it’s a duplicate question. That’s why you can delete questions from the Q&A tab.
To delete a question, follow these steps:
On the webinar page, navigate to the ‘Q&A’ tab.
Find the question you want to reset the live answer for.
Click on the three dots next to the question.
Click ‘Delete question’.
Click ‘Delete question’ again in the confirmation pop-up.
The question has now been deleted.
Tips & tricks
Having a team member select which questions to answer
You might receive dozens of questions during a crowded webinar, including duplicate questions and questions that were already answered. In this case, it can be wise to assign a team member to select questions to address.
To do so, set the Q&A mode to ‘Restricted’. This makes it so that only webinar team members can submit questions. Your attendees can then ask questions in the public and/or private chats, where the team member can select which questions to forward to the Q&A function.
Read more about that in this section of the article.
Only accepting questions during specific parts of a webinar
Sometimes, you may want to limit your Q&A to a specific part of the webinar. For example, you could dedicate a part to explaining a certain subject, then open the Q&A feature for a limited time before moving on to the next subject.
The best way to do this is by keeping the Q&A function on ‘Disabled’ until you want to start accepting questions, which is when you change it to ‘Public’. This can all be done from the webinar page, so it’s easy to do during the live broadcast!
Read this section of the article to find out how to change the Q&A mode during the webinar.