Customers don't know what they want... How do you handle them?

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Must get a signed off requirements document.

Learning how to ask the right questions will help, but getting the specifics down in writing helps a lot, too.

Ask them for 5 examples, write very detailed contracts and always try to have them pay upfront. Sums up the basic "rules" I always used.

Some times is hard to write exactly what they want...

@prefect - There's 10 questions that can help you out, a lot.

1. What does your business actually do?
2. What do you want your site to accomplish?
3. Do you have a website already?
4. What makes your company remarkable?
5. Who are your competitors?
6. What websites do you like and why?
7. Who exactly are your customers and what are their pains?
8. What features do you want your website to have?
9. How will you measure your success?
10. Do you have a style guide or any existing collateral?

You could refer them to a business analyst or marketing consultant - third party if you don't have one in house.

If it's a good reference. They'll get a much more unified brand that is a right fit for their business and you'll know what you have to work with.

Come up with suggestions/ drafts as to what you think they want and what is sensible to you, then pull them into buy in with it. They never know or take the time to think it through before they see suggestions anyway.

Leadership and education. Show them what they should have based on your expertise. It installs trust and makes it a team effort over "you vs. them"

I recommend reading "The joy of UX" by David Platt. It's a how-to for devs to get you started wirh simple techniques that'll make your customers more happy. I attended a 4-day class with David 2 years ago, and the stuff I learned really works. The 2 systems I've built using the techniques from the class (as also described in the book) are the 2 in our portfolio with the most happy users.

The most important is to talk to your users, because they are not you. They are not even like you.
The user doesn't want to use your software for the sake of using it, he wants to do his job. You need to recognize that fact.

"Know thy user, for he is not thee". Amen. :)

Thanks a lot!