When Users Won’t Do What You Want, Blame the Product. Not the User.

The fastest way to increase user engagement is not a better email sequence. It is not a training program. It is not an escalation workflow.

It is fixing the product.

That lesson sounds obvious. In practice, however, most teams skip it entirely. Here is what happened when we did not.

The Problem Everyone Misdiagnosed

At a marketplace I worked at, users were not updating their jobs in the platform. Leadership had a clear theory: users were lazy, unmotivated, and simply did not care.

As a result, the ops team spent hours every day chasing information manually. Payments got delayed. Everyone was frustrated. The company was ready to double down on reminder emails and escalation paths.

I did not buy it.

What I Did Instead of Assuming

Rather than accepting that diagnosis, I stopped assuming and started watching.

I talked to users directly. Not surveys — actual conversations. I shadowed the Ops and Finance teams, sitting next to them and watching the manual work pile up in real time. I asked questions that probably sounded dumb: what are you doing right now, why are you doing it that way, where does this break.

Turns out users wanted to get paid. Shocking revelation, I know.

The platform, however, made it nearly impossible to understand what they needed to do to close a job and trigger payment. The UI was confusing. The steps were buried. Nobody told them what was missing.

The motivation was there all along. The friction, though, was worse.

The Fix Was Not One Feature. It Was a System.

We did not ship a single feature and call it done. Instead, we built a coordinated set of improvements that each removed a specific layer of friction.

First, we built a dashboard, desktop and mobile, with a clear list of actions each user needed to take to close their work and get paid faster. Confirm this stop. Upload this document. Complete this step. No ambiguity.

Next, we added notifications via email and text. Simple nudges at the right moments, not generic reminders.

Additionally, we created self-training flows so users could learn the platform without waiting for support. We also shipped smaller improvements across the broader experience: better error messages, clearer confirmation screens, and fewer dead ends.

Each piece removed friction independently. Together, however, they changed behavior at scale.

What Happened After We Shipped

User engagement went from 8% to 90%.

The ops team stopped chasing information. Payment speed improved significantly. User satisfaction went up, and retention followed. Cost to serve dropped, and revenue impact followed shortly after.

All of that happened because we stopped blaming users and started removing friction, systematically.

Why Most Teams Get This Wrong

It is easier to blame users than to fix products. Blaming users feels productive: you schedule meetings, design new emails, and build escalation workflows. None of it works, but it looks like progress.

Fixing friction, on the other hand, requires humility. You have to admit the product is the problem. That is uncomfortable for teams who built and shipped that product. So, understandably, they skip it.

The irony is that fixing friction is also faster and cheaper than most behavioral nudge campaigns. You just have to be willing to look.

The Lesson I Keep Relearning

When users are not doing what you want, the problem is almost never motivation. It is friction.

Find the friction. Remove it systematically. Watch the numbers move.

That pattern holds across every product I have worked on marketplaces, SaaS platforms, consumer apps, and enterprise tools. Users genuinely want to succeed. Your job, therefore, is to stop getting in their way.

Takeaways: How to Apply This on Your Own Product

• Stop blaming users for product failures. Start with the assumption that the product is broken
• Shadow the people closest to the pain, not just leadership
• Talk to users directly, not through surveys
• Look for friction before adding motivation tactics
• One feature rarely solves systemic problems, so think in systems
• Measure the outcome, not the effort

If you are stuck on a similar problem, I am happy to talk it through. Reach out through benjaminlecam.info or message me on LinkedIn.