Biography

Book Barbara Khozam through The Keynote Curators.

As the founder of Barbara Khozam Speaking and Consulting, Barbara is an internationally recognized speaker and trainer having delivered over 1900 presentations to 75,000 people in 12 countries on Customer Service, Patient Experience, Leadership, and Communication. In 2019 Barbara Khozam was chosen as the Top Customer Service Consultant of the Year by the International Association of Top Professionals. Also in 2019, Barbara Khozam was awarded the CSP® (Certified Speaking Professional™) from the National Speaker’s Association. Barbara Khozam is one of only three women in the world to have achieved BOTH this designation as well as the Toastmaster Accredited Speaker designation. In 2021, Barbara achieved the Certified Patient Experience Professional “CPXP) designation from the Patient Experience Institute. In her spare time, you can find her on the beaches of southern California playing the best sport ever invented: Beach Volleyball!

Contact us for Barbara Khozam’s fees and availability.

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Videos

Customer Service & Leadership: How Great Manners Transform Business | Keynote Speaker Barbara Khozam

How to Improve Customer Service & Keep Customers Coming Back | Customer Service Tips

How to Improve Patient Experience in 10 Weeks | Boost Satisfaction & Engagement in Healthcare

ARA Marti Wenzler 2 2022

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Speech TopicsExpand each topic to learn more

Zap Negativity and Ignite yourself, Your Life, and Your Results

In business, the rules of fair play are constantly changing, leaving many teams feeling drained.

And when negativity creeps in, it becomes a trap that is easy to get caught in. Barbara will guide you out of that trap and show you proven techniques to create a rewarding and positive environment. She will take your audience on a laugh-filled, fast-paced, motivating journey that is custom tailored for your specific group. Your audience will discover the following:

• How to build a solid foundation so you can succeed at work and at home
• How to create a “Get over it and get on with it” attitude
• How to avoid someone else’s emotional negativity
• How to discover your enthusiasm and fuel it fire hot!

Who should attend
• Managers, Supervisors, Team leaders
• Front line staff
• Call center employees
• Back-office employees
• Anyone who interacts with people

How to Deliver an Extraordinary Service Experience

Everyone in business knows that customers have choices. It’s no longer good enough to simply meet customer expectations. Customers who are merely satisfied with a service will remain flexible but will switch companies after only one bad experience. It’s, therefore, more important to create exceptional customer experiences – a story that they can share with their friends and family The best service organizations realize that the quality of experience a customer realizes on each visit can win a customer’s business AND long-term loyalty! So why let customer service sit on the sideline. In this seminar you will discover:

• The rationale for extraordinary service
• How to get your team to deliver a consistent experience to every customer, every time
• A proven 4-step proven customer service protocol
• Communication techniques for exceeding customers’ expectations
• Ways to create loyalty

It’s no longer good enough to simply meet customer expectations. Customers who are merely satisfied with a service will remain flexible but will switch companies after only one bad experience. It’s, therefore, more important to create exceptional customer experiences – a story that they can share with their friends and family. Master trainer, Barbara Khozam, will use humor and interactive techniques to guide your participants into learning easy-to-implement lessons that not only create delighted customers and employees, but exceptional results as well.

Who should attend
• Managers, Supervisors, Team leaders
• Front line staff
• Call center employees
• Back-office employees
• Anyone who interacts with people

Leading for Service Excellence – in person and virtually

Are you stressed out about building and managing a team the works? Especially when your team is working from home? Do you want and need a straight-forward leadership class to help you be successful?
You’ve come to the right place!

This skill-building workshop is designed for all individuals in leadership positions and focuses on
a proven approach to motivating, managing, evaluating and correcting the performance of employees.

Industry expert, Barbara Khozam, will help you understand and learn to deal with the challenges in working with a diverse group of people. Discover little known (and under-utilized) ways to build respect and rapport with everyone on your team today! Prepare for the challenges of being a leader without having to do it all and know it all.

Barbara will share with you how to:
• Evaluate your leadership style and how to continue to develop your skills
• Discover the best way to communicate your expectations and instructions – whether your people are in the office, or at home
• Identify how to earn and then keep the respect of your team
• Discover simple ways to motivate and inspire your team to greatness

Who should attend
• Managers, Supervisors, Team leaders
• Aspiring leaders
• Anyone who manages people

From Burnout to Buy-In: Leadership Strategies to Reignite Teams

In an era of high turnover, low staffing, and wavering morale, leaders are tasked with more than just maintaining operations they must inspire, engage, and lead with resilience. This session offers practical leadership tools designed to enhance employee engagement and foster a culture of excellence, ultimately leading to improved customer satisfaction and organizational success. Participants will gain insights into their own leadership styles, learn to motivate and communicate effectively across all levels of their team, and develop strategies to overcome common leadership challenges.

Objectives:
After attending this session, attendees will be able to:
• Implement strategies to boost employee engagement and morale, leading to improved
retention.
• Foster a culture of accountability and effective communication across all team levels.
• Confidently address underperformance and develop a sustainable action plan for
leadership success.

Managing Emotions and Thriving Under Pressure

All of us have experienced unwanted emotions at work – either with our coworkers, our boss, or ourselves. While having emotions is normal, it’s what we do with them that can lead to problems
– with our relationships, our productivity and our well-being.

This program will teach you a systematic process for developing “emotional self-control”. It will help you approach your life with more discipline and will help you learn how to make better choices.

Areas covered
• Identify and control YOUR emotional hot buttons
• Stop getting so worked up over little things
• Stay centered in pressure situations
• Stop avoiding conflict
• Graceful “exit lines”
• Safe ways to blow off steam

Who should attend
• Managers, Supervisors, Team leaders
• Front line staff
• Medical Assistants
• Call center employees
• Back-office employees
• Providers
• Anyone who interacts with people

Telephone Etiquette for our NEW world

Now more than ever, the telephone is the first human contact – and the first impression - a client has with your company. Is that first contact a good one? How your phone is answered can make the difference between creating a loyal client and one who moves toward your competition.

When your clients have positive interactions on the phone, their trust and loyalty increase and they’re more flexible when problems arise. Who doesn’t want that?

In this session, you’ll learn:
• Two proven techniques for making callers feel welcome from the outset
• The Five Basic Strategies for handling a call efficiently
• Call “Transfer Tricks” that save time and energy
• “Phrustrating” Phone Phrases to avoid at all costs
- How to put on that “happy phone face” when you’re stressed and exhausted

Who should attend
• Front line staff – if they do phone work
• Call center employees
• Back-office employees
• Billing employees
• Anyone who interacts with people on the phone

How to Deal with Difficult Customers/People

It’s easy to deliver exceptional service when people are nice. It’s a challenge when the customer is demanding, unreasonable and confrontational. This session is about communicating with people during the most challenging times. It is about avoiding conflict and controlling your triggers when it counts the most. Don’t let unmanaged conflict affect your relationships, waste your time, and/or create stress.

While conflicts, disagreements and emotions are normal, problems can occur when they go unmanaged. If you find some difficult customers are easy to handle while others are not, or if you yearn for the right thing to say at the right moment, this session is for you. Studies have shown that if a difficult customer is dealt with quickly and efficiently, 90% of them become loyal and raving fans.

In this session, you’ll learn:
• Who benefits from dealing effectively with difficult customers
• Recognize your own “triggers” and learn fast and easy strategies to control them
• Graceful “exit” lines to retain respect and credibility
• How to turn a complaint into an opportunity
• What, exactly, to say to turn around 95% of difficult customers

Who should attend
• Managers, Supervisors, Team leaders
• Front line staff
• Call center employees
• Back-office employees
• Anyone who interacts with people

How To Be a Better Communicator

In this session, industry expert, Barbara Khozam, will help you understand and learn the interpersonal and communication skills you need to ensure mutual understanding when dealing with others. As a result you will maximize all your business interactions and achieve maximum results. This is a straight-forward communication class to help you become more successful.

Studies have shown that people with good communication skills are more successful – in all areas of their life! Effective communication skills impact our professionalism and our chances for career advancement. For most people, however, tact and diplomacy don’t come naturally. It takes unique set of skills to truly hear what people are saying and to respond effectively – especially when you’re feeling challenged.

Areas covered
• Understand how perception and image can impact others’ perception of you and your performance
• Identify and remove the roadblocks to effective communication
• Apply verbal and nonverbal techniques to build understanding
• Get you point across with different personalities and situations
• How to think on your feet - especially in high stress meetings and conversations

Who should attend
• Managers and Supervisors
• Customer Service Professionals
• Team Leaders
• Anyone who interacts with people

Testimonials

Barbara is extremely easy to work with and took time to learn about our attendees and engage with them while at the conference. I felt she was invested in making sure her contributions to our event were only positive!
– Rebekah Francis - Tennessee MGMA
Working with Barbara during the planning stages of our event was an absolute pleasure. She was not only professional and prepared but also brought a sense of excitement and enthusiasm that made the entire process enjoyable. Her collaborative spirit and responsiveness made coordinating the details smooth and stress-free. During the event itself, Barbara was outstanding. She was incredibly engaging and interactive with our staff, keeping everyone’s attention from start to finish. Her ability to balance humor, storytelling, and education created a dynamic and memorable experience for all attendees. I received a lot of positive feedback from staff afterward. Many expressed how refreshing it was to have a speaker who was not only fun to listen to, but who also delivered valuable insights they could apply in their work. Barbara struck the perfect balance between entertainment and education, and we are truly grateful for the impact she made. We would absolutely welcome the opportunity to work with her again in the future.
– Susannah Best - Heritage Victor Valley Medical Group
We've had the privilege of welcoming Barbara Khozam as a keynote speaker at the NAOHP Annual Conference not once, but twice—and each time, she left our audience energized, inspired, and armed with practical tools to elevate the customer experience in occupational medicine. Barbara brings an unmatched blend of humor, energy, and substance to the stage. Her insights into communication, empathy, and team engagement strike a chord with clinicians and administrators alike. She doesn’t just talk about exceeding expectations—she models it in every interaction. Whether addressing patient communication challenges or coaching our teams on how to build stronger employer relationships, Barbara's message is always clear, actionable, and deeply relevant to the unique world of occupational health. We were also thrilled to host her on our "Fit For Duty" podcast, where her passion and expertise once again took center stage. From navigating tricky return-to-work conversations to building loyalty with employer clients, Barbara offered real-world strategies that connected instantly with our audience. And yes—her volleyball metaphors? Spot-on and unforgettable! Barbara has become a trusted voice in our community and a favorite among our members. If you're looking for a speaker who can deliver meaningful change with warmth, humor, and serious insight—Barbara is the one.
– Larry Earl, MD President, NAOHP - President of NAOHP (National Association of Occupational Health Professionals
Barbara was wonderful to work with! Responsive, knowledgeable, and personable. She really understood our client’s needs. As a speaker’s bureau, we work with many speakers and Barbara really represented our bureau in the best way. Hoping we have an opportunity to work together again very soon! Barbara was fantastic to work with! She represented our bureau, Gravity Speakers, in the best light. From our client, League of California Cities: "Barbara delivered exactly what we needed- energy and enthusiasm to get the conference started on a positive note!
– Gravity Speakers
I still can’t get your session out of my mind—it was brilliant and truly re-inspired me to bring that energy back to our sales team.
– Kaitlyn DeGrasse - Sales & Marketing Director

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