Clients describe the feature. They rarely describe the problem
Everyone asked for automatic replies. Nobody wanted automatic replies.
Every business that came to us asked for the same thing in the same words: reply to messages automatically. If you build exactly that, you produce a wall that says 'thanks for your message' and the customer leaves faster than before.
What they wanted was to stop losing people they'd already paid to reach. Automatic replies are one possible shape of that. Knowing which enquiries are urgent is another. Knowing which ones a machine must never answer turned out to matter more than either.
The interview is the work. If I take the brief literally I build the thing they described; if I take it seriously I build the thing they meant.