Again and again we are asked by customers BEFORE the presentation of their first Webinaris webinar if the participants would not recognize that it is not live. AFTER the first presentations this question doesn't come anymore :-)
Fact is:
Nobody claims that this is a LIVE webinar. So you shouldn't do this in the announcement of your webinar. (For example, with regard to any questions participants may have, you can say beforehand that you will answer them calmly after the webinar. However, our experience also shows that there are not so many questions if the participants are not explicitly encouraged to ask them). So as long as you don't talk about giving a live webinar, nobody will and can blame you.
Our experience with more than 100.000 participants in a multitude of automated webinars so far shows:
a) Nobody cares if it's live or not. People are in the webinar because they are interested in the trainer or the topic. It makes no difference whether it is broadcasted live or automatically.
b) It concerns perhaps 1 to 2% of the participants, who (themselves) ask whether the Webinar is live or not. But even these participants do not log out because of it directly, but watch the Webinar like all the others.
c) In fact it is not possible to determine with certainty whether a webinar is live or not. (Believe us ... You have also attended more automated webinars than you are aware of :-) ). The question about the live character basically only arises during the chat. And here Webinaris offers you different opportunities.
Don't focus on enemies:
We think that this is the most important insight in every business. There will always be people who register with false names, write unqualified comments in the chat and have something to criticize about everything. But: In many years of business activities we have recognized again and again that those people are not and will not be customers. People just use to focus on these enemies far too much :-)
We at Webinaris are constantly giving new automated webinars. We even say that it is automated. People still sign up, because - as described - it doesn't change the fact that people want to listen to the trainer or want to get the info ... they just don't care whether it is live or automated.