Is This Any Way to Treat a Loyal Customer?

I have been a Dr. Laura Schlessinger fan for decades, listening to her radio program and reading many of her books, and interacting with her program's social media. She read at least one essay I posted on my blog on her radio program, approvingly. It was in her defense from attacks directed her way. She's read letters I've written to her on her program.

Her program, which airs live on SiriusXM, is also sold as a paid subscription podcast. I subscribe to that podcast, because I want to be able to listen to every moment of the program; the implication is that the podcast is going to be the program that aired, minus the breaks.

Unfortunately, too often, it isn't.

Sometimes, an hour or all three from weeks or months ago will be uploaded instead of that day's live program. Some other times, the 48-minute long hour will have one segment repeat back-to-back, meaning we are hearing the same 12 minutes we just heard 12 minutes ago. And since the hour isn't extended, that means we are missing 12 minutes of that hour.

This is NOT when she plans to be off and they run "Best of." Or when old calls are dopped into her "live" program to give her a break or make up for a lack of callers (all talk programs are getting fewer callers). This is the person handling the podcast (which isn't her) botching the podcast. Now, we all make mistakes. But a botched podcast can be fixed. And it should be.

Dr. Laura says she reads all her e-mails (just not all on the air). I wonder if that's true, or if she only reads the ones her staff allows her to read? I know she interacts with comments on the program's official Facebook but does NOT interact with the program's Twitter account.

It became clear that Tuesday [not Monday, as I originally wrote], July 19, 2022 podcast's third hour (at least), wasn't (or, substantially wasn't) what aired on the SiriusXM program. There were several ways to know:

• Some people catch parts of the program on SiriusXM, then later listen to the podcast, and some podcast listeners discuss the program with people who listen live. Differences become apparent. "Did you hear the call about....?" Well, no, because it wasn't included in the podcast. Something else must have been, instead.
  
  
• Some close, avid listeners of the podcast recognize old calls from past editions of the program.
  
  
• Dr. Laura reads an "Email of the Day" and that also gets posted on the official program website. The "Email of the Day" read during that podcast hour is NOT a recently posted Email of the Day, and her Facebook posted the Email of the Day for Tuesday (see below) and it wasn't one heard by podcast listeners. 

In addition:

• That hour was labeled on the website as "Jasmine's 7-year-old daughter is holding back her emotions." However, there was no such call during that podcast hour.
  
  
• Dr. Laura does a live promo for her "Marriage 101" course. That was something she was doing promos for months ago. She's currently doing live promos for her book about surviving "Shark Attacks" on land, and indeed, later in the hour there was also one of those.
  
  
• Dr. Laura mentions that she's going to tell story after a break, then never tells the story.

The first one of those three is an indication that the wrong file got uploaded for podcast listeners. The second and third are indications that whatever was uploaded was "spliced together," at least partially from one or more previous programs. The third almost certainly isn't a matter of Dr. Laura forgetting to tell the story. Using old calls isn't the problem here, if they were used during the live program. The problem is that we podcast subscribers aren't getting the program that aired that day.

So what are paying podcast subscribers to do, if they want what aired that day instead of retreads from weeks or months ago?

Well, they can try the customer service tied to the podcast subscription. What if we think Dr. Laura needs to be aware of this recurring problem? We can write her an e-mail about it, and hope she sees it. I tried alerting her through the program's Facebook. This was posted there:



That was precisely the Email of the Day podcast listeners DID NOT get to hear her read. None of her podcast listeners (as of this writing, anyway), got to hear that.

So I was the first to comment:


For that, I was quicky banned from the program's official Facebook (and that comment removed), despite being a longtime "Top Contributor" who behaved respectfully and expressed my appreciation for the program there.

Now here's the question I have, other than "Will that hour of the podcast ever get fixed?":

Was it staff that banned me (I wonder if Dr. Laura even knows how to ban, as she is self-admittedly not that technical), and is Dr. Laura being informed of when her podcast is getting botched, or is that being deliberately kept from her? If she doesn't care, or doesn't want customers talking about it because she doesn't want to discourage people from signing up, that's one thing. If her staff is hiding important information from her, shame on them.

I'd really like to know which it is.

As things are right now, I'm considering ending my subscription, as this isn't the way customers should be treated, and if podcast subscribers aren't going to get what they paid for (especially given there are still ads included, just not the ones during breaks), they shouldn't keep paying. No, my one subscription isn't a big deal, ...but if you lose me, surely you're losing many others.

I'd be happy to do a positive update to this post. If someone needs to reach me, they can contact me through my Facebook or my Twitter.

Do the right thing, indeed.