Don’t Lose the Pants: What Happens When You Miss the Core Job to Be Done

A pile of socks missing mates, because our laundry service failed to return them.

A business I’ve used for several years stole my pants.

Seriously. Stole my pants.

Well… okay. It's a little more complicated than that. A few summers ago, my husband and I made a decision: we needed to take back our weekends. We were spending so much time doing chores — laundry, grocery shopping, general life admin — that we had little time left over for anything else. Fun with friends? Relaxing with family? Spontaneous adventures or even a nap on a Sunday afternoon? Nope. We were in a domestic task loop.

So, we made a choice: outsource the laundry. I know that’s a privilege, and not something we decided lightly. But I cannot overstate the joy of dropping a bag of dirty clothes on your front step and having them return, like magic, washed and folded. It gave us time back. And time is one of the few things you can’t buy more of.

This laundry service was sleek, app-based, and efficient. So easy. So convenient. I loved it.

And then… the socks started to disappear.

At first, I brushed it off. Everyone loses socks, right? It’s practically a universal joke. But this wasn’t just the usual sock carnage. This was a consistent, baffling attrition rate. Pair by pair, our sock drawers thinned out. I submitted feedback. I filled out every post-service survey. I texted. I emailed. I used all the channels. My message? Stop losing our socks.

But instead of fixing the core issue, the service doubled down on features. Over time, they rolled out same-day delivery. Eco-friendly detergent. Person-specific folding preferences. (Yes, really.) Meanwhile, the one job they were supposed to do — return our clothes — became increasingly hit-or-miss.

Then, one day, the laundry bag came back missing a pair of slacks I really loved. Not fancy pants. Not expensive pants. Just pants that fit well and made me feel good. I messaged the company (again). They apologized (again). But the pants were gone. 

And that, dear reader, was the end of the relationship.

Because here's the thing: it wasn’t just about the pants, or even the socks. It was about trust. It was about the sense that this business had stopped listening, that they'd lost sight of their core service. That instead of doing the hard work of fixing the fundamentals, they were building shiny add-ons to distract from the broken bits underneath.

And I get it. I really do. I’ve worked in product for years. I know how hard it is to understand what’s truly core for a customer, and know it's even harder to keep delivering on it. Especially when that core is buried under 25-year-old codebases, stubborn processes, and people who’ve been hearing the same complaints for so long that they’ve gone numb to them.

But if you’re not delivering the core thing your customer needs — if you’re literally not returning the pants — no amount of innovation is going to make up for that.

So, what do we do? How do we keep from becoming the laundry service that steals pants?

Here's a few ideas:

1. Identify the core job to be done.

What is the essential thing your product or service helps a customer achieve? This isn’t a philosophical exercise; it should be specific and grounded in your user journeys. Talk to your UX team. Look at how people actually move through your experience. If your offering is complex (and many are), focus. Choose 1–3 key jobs for an important user group, and make sure those experiences are rock solid.

2. Measure how well you’re doing it.

Pick a metric. Any metric. (Well, maybe not any metric, but don’t get paralyzed by trying to pick the perfect one.) Net Promoter Score, SUS, Task Success, whatever. Just start tracking one. It will be uncomfortable at first. People might feel exposed. That’s okay. The only way to get better is to be honest about where things aren’t working.

3. Ask your customers about their dealbreakers.

We spend a lot of time asking users what they’d like to see next: what shiny new thing will win your loyalty forever? And that’s good! Keep doing that. But also ask: What would make you walk away? What would make you stop trusting us? What’s the moment that would push you to uninstall, cancel, or churn? These are hard questions, but they reveal truths that “Would you recommend us to a friend?” never will.

4. Keep improving, but don’t lose sight of the core.

Innovation is great. Differentiators matter. But they can’t come at the cost of the basic service you promised to deliver. The core thing that probably got your company off the ground in the first place still matters. Don't take your focus off of that. Maybe now more than ever.

And above all, please, please, don’t steal your customers’ pants.