The COM-B model for understanding customer behaviour
In this you’ll learn:
When Something Isn’t Working, I Keep Coming Back to COM-B
When a marketing campaign doesn’t deliver what was expected, calm reflection is rarely the first response.
More often, there’s a familiar instinct to get louder. Push harder. Add more.
A more useful shift is to stop asking what to add, and start asking what’s actually getting in the way.
That’s where the COM-B framework comes in.
What is the COM-B model?
COM-B is a behaviour framework (hence the “B”) that looks at what needs to be in place before behaviour can happen.
The core idea is simple: behaviour happens when three things are present:
Capability
Opportunity
Motivation
That’s it. No magic. No moral judgement.
What makes it useful is that it shifts the focus away from blame and toward barriers.
Capability: can they actually do this?
Capability isn’t about intelligence.
It’s about whether someone has enough clarity, confidence, and mental space to start.
Do they:
understand what’s being asked?
know what the next step is?
feel capable of doing it without feeling stupid?
And, very practically — can they literally do it?
Asking someone to complete a complex process when they’re overwhelmed, time-poor, or already at capacity isn’t really effective, is it?
We massively underestimate how much assumed knowledge exists in systems.
If someone has to Google three things just to understand what’s being asked of them, that’s not a motivation problem.
That’s a capability gap we created — or failed to notice was already there.
Opportunity: does the world make room for this?
Opportunity is everything outside the person.
Time.
Access.
Friction.
Environment.
Competing priorities.
And yes — social opportunity too. What other people are doing. What feels normal. What feels expected.
This is the one we forget most — and the one that bites hardest.
Long forms.
Hard-to-find information.
People can be deeply motivated and still unable to act if the environment keeps getting in the way.
Good intentions don’t survive bad systems.
Motivation: does this feel worth it?
Motivation isn’t hype or willpower.
It’s not a “do you really want this bad enough?” speech from a personal trainer on January 2nd.
It’s whether something feels:
relevant
worth the effort
meant for someone like me
A lot of what we label as apathy is actually hesitation, fear of getting it wrong, or not wanting to expose uncertainty.
Avoidance is often self-protection in disguise.
When I look at behaviour through this lens, I stop asking why won’t they? and start asking what feels risky here?
How COM-B can be used in practice
COM-B can be used to build.
It can be used to test when things aren’t working, it can be used to understand why things are working, and it’s super useful when something feels off.
This model is a helpful framework to reflect on your audience and the conditions they’re operating within — not just what you want them to do.
Instead of jumping straight to how do we make them do this?, it helps to slow down, get to know the people you’re designing for, and ask how they might be better supported:
Am I asking too much, too soon?
Have I made this harder than it needs to be?
Am I relying on people to overcome friction I could remove?
Most of the time, the answer is yes.
Some COM-B prompting questions
Next time something isn’t working, try pausing before adding more noise and ask a few questions instead.
Capability
What capacities are we assuming?
Is it clear what’s being asked?
Is the next step obvious?
Opportunity
Where is friction showing up — time, access, effort, attention?
What social signals are present (or missing)? Does this feel normal to do?
Motivation
Does it feel worth the effort required?
What might make someone hesitate, even if they care?
These questions are about noticing what’s missing — and designing around that.
Because noticing what’s missing is over half the battle.