Craig Brown of Better Projects wrote an excellent post highlighting the reasons why a client might prefer to work with certain people even though other equally qualified people are available.

"Patients will [...] cross the city to visit their preferred GP [rather than visiting the nearest available doctor]. Patients are not in a good position to assess the quality of medical advice they receive, so what makes them care enough about a doctor to make such efforts? The answer is the "bedside manner" which in the context of this [project management / consulting] is their empathy."

Project managers and consultants need to empathize with their client, their employees, and other stakeholders.  Through empathy, one can truly understand the issues that the other party is dealing with and respond with sincerity.

Once, I was involved in a project where the client services manager had to relay a possible budget overrun to the client.  Unfortunately, the client had been under the impression that the supplier would absorb any cost overruns.  The first course of action that the client services manager took is to explain in detail to the customer how high the quality of our services has been and pointed out relevant passages in the contract to correct the client's perception.  However, the client soured on the relationship feeling that he was being cheated.  When the issue was escalated, the executive from our company listened very carefully to the client's pain points and empathized with him.  This led directly to an improvement of the client relationship and contributed to a successful negotiation and follow-on work.

Do you have any stories where empathy or lack thereof led to a change in the client relationship?  If so, leave a comment.