While I was licking my wounds from my Colts loss in the Super Bowl — by the way, no excuses…the Saints deserved to win…they played and acted like champions – I discovered CBS was also providing an incredible opportunity for us to observe why most companies provide such terrible service to their customers.

Did you watch the program after the Super Bowl? It was the premiere of a new series, “Undercover Boss,” where a leader of a major organization goes incognito to do the work of his front-line employees, who have no idea they are working side-by-side with their CEO or COO.

As you can imagine, the boss learns how hard it is to do the job of his least-paid employees, and gains a new appreciation for their true importance to the organization. The show ends…and we’re all supposed to feel better.

I didn’t.

Instead, I think the program provides — in stunning detail — a guide to what is wrong with most organizations today. Leaders have a perfect grasp on balance sheets and EBITDA growth…and are so out of touch with customers and front-line workers they have little idea what’s REALLY going on.

Isn’t it amazing the executive had really no concept how hard the employee’s jobs were — and the workers were so disconnected from the leadership of their company, the COO could work beside them, and they had no idea who he is?

Consider this, from Ken Tucker’s review in “Entertainment Weekly” –

Pretty soon, O’Donnell (COO of Waste Management) was shown vacuuming out portable toilets at an amusement park; picking up trash on a windy day (the night’s true hero, Walter, fired O’Donnell for not being fast enough); and working on a recycling assembly line with a nice woman who had to gobble her lunch down in a 30-minute break and race to clock in after her meal, lest she be docked in her wages.

You know who I felt the worst for? Kevin, the poor middle-management guy O’Donnell hauled in to grill about Sandy’s time-card-punching angst. That guy gets it coming and going: His employees resent him for implementing O’Donnell’s rules, then O’Donnell comes along and busts his chops.

Perhaps I’m out of touch. I’m certainly old-fashioned. I grew up in southern Indiana at a time when the biggest company in our area — Cummins Diesel — had a CEO who had started on the plant floor. However, if you are a business leader who could relate to O’Donnell’s situation…and could see yourself having similar revelations…then you and your business are in serious trouble.

Let’s get it straight —

1) if you don’t know everything you are requiring of your employees, and how they do their jobs — you have no idea what your customers are experiencing
2) if you aren’t thoroughly immersed in the customer experience, your best clients are looking for someone to take your place
3) dissatisfied and disrespected employees create dissatisfied and disrespected customers

How sad is it in business today that a CEO or COO working the jobs of their front-line people is so rare…it can become the television show that follows the Super Bowl?

If you lead a company…get your butt out there with your front-line people and get to work. Serve some customers…create a better experience.

If you do, I’ll bet you’ll find those numbers you care so much about will actually improve. Imagine that.

What the two teams in Sunday’s Super Bowl can teach us… (Click to play…)

For better or worse, much of my life these days is spent online.

Don’t misunderstand – I’m not complaining! In fact, I like it this way. The opportunity to reconnect with long-lost friends on Facebook, to keep updated on ideas and insights via Twitter, to share my thoughts and opinions on this blog – I think it’s great!

Naturally…as with anything…something you enjoy can become detrimental if it is overdone. Research indicates you can enjoy a glass or two of wine in the evening, and it’s good for your heart – but, if you start consuming much more on a daily basis, you’ll ruin your health. Being online can open up new vistas of knowledge and information — however, spend all of your life there, and you blow up your personal relationships.

With that caution understood, imagine when I somewhat suddenly discovered myself getting tons of work done on airplanes for a very simple reason: I was flying Delta most of the time, and they have Wi-Fi access on most of their flights.

I could now stay in touch during the flight, get e-mail done, even SMS text via Google with folks in my office and home on a real-time basis, and land with my tasks completed…totally ready to spend time with loved ones or colleagues.

It never occurred to me something that I would have previously imagined as irrelevant – an Internet connection during a flight – would end up becoming significant.

(And, by the way, HUGE kudos to Go-Go…the company pioneering airplane Wi-Fi! Both the speed and reliability have been remarkable! I highly recommend you try it out on your next flight.)

As I write this, I’m on a four-hour-plus flight from O’Hare to San Diego on United. There is no Wi-Fi available…and, I miss it.

On future trips, the simple fact that flying Delta instead would have made my total time in the air – six hours including my originating flight – so much more productive is the tipping point regarding where my future business will go.

Could you take a four-hour-plus lunch break in the middle of the day with no contact with your office during your busy season? No? Well, I don’t believe it’s best for me, either. Yet, that’s almost exactly what this flight is – compared to a Delta flight offering connectivity.

I’ve noticed United put leather on the seats, making them more comfortable and stylish. Thanks. And, isn’t that the old way of doing it in the airline business?

We want to improve our standing in the marketplace…so, hey! Let’s upgrade our plane’s interiors. Why don’t we do exactly what we did a few years back when we went to cloth seats, only this time we’ll make it leather!

However, it seems to me United also should have been just as concerned about those business passengers – the most profitable segment of their customer base – occupying those leather seats, and their ever-changing needs in this ever-hasty world.

In other words, if you’re in the airline business, you re-fit the plane. If you’re in the passenger transportation business, you ask what would make the trip more productive and enjoyable for the people inside the plane!

One more mini-rant! Could United’s pre-flight instructional video be any more boring? A few days ago, I mentioned the cool program Delta has with the real-life flight attendant now nicknamed in the press as “Deltalina.” (Some believe she looks a bit like Angelina Jolie – so the name is a combination of her name…and Delta’s.)

United, on the other hand, must believe that if they can put us all to sleep before the flight lifts off, we will be easier for the flight attendants to manage.

What does this mean to your business? Many points – however, let’s concentrate on this one: To create Ultimate Customer Experiences, you must be creating what your clients desire. You may assume they want better leather seats…what they REALLY want could be the ability to work more productively online.

What are some of the assumptions YOU have constructed regarding what YOUR customer base craves?