Commercial refrigeration customer service representative job description
A commercial refrigeration customer service representative takes the calls and portal work orders when a store's walk-in, case or ice machine fails. They get the details a tech needs, chase quote approvals, confirm maintenance visits and answer billing questions for grocers, restaurants and cold storage sites.
By the HireBus team · Updated · Pay data: BLS, May 2025
Median pay, HVAC and plumbing contractors · BLS, May 2025
Annual pay: 10th percentile $36,810, middle half $39,810 to $54,050, 90th percentile $62,760. Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025.
Reports to
Office Manager
Department
Administration
Schedule
Branch shifts, some nights and weekends · Office shifts at the branch, evening, weekend or holiday turns in a rotation, and busier phones in heat waves
Also called
Service coordinator · Call taker · Work order coordinator · Customer care representative
Commercial refrigeration customer service representative job description template
This is our Role Blueprint, word for word. Replace the highlighted fields and adjust the example targets and pay to fit your company.
Refrigeration Install & Service - Customer Service Representative
Company Name:
[INSERT COMPANY NAME HERE]
Department:
Administration
Reports to:
Office Manager
Location:
[INSERT LOCATION HERE]
1. Position Summary
You'll answer the phone when a restaurant's walk-in is warm or a grocery case is icing up. You'll take the details a technician needs, enter work orders from calls and customer portals, keep customers updated on quotes and visits, and answer questions about invoices and agreements.
2. Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Take service calls and portal work orders, and enter the equipment, its location in the store, the symptoms and the current temperature.
Ask the urgency questions in your call script: is product at risk, is a temperature alarm going off, is water on the floor.
Follow up on repair quotes waiting for customer approval and send approvals to the Dispatcher.
Request not-to-exceed increases in customer portals when a repair will cost more than the work order allows.
Confirm preventive maintenance visit dates and store access with each site.
Answer billing and agreement coverage questions, and pass disputes to the Office Manager.
3. Key Tasks / Daily Activities
Answer calls and emails and check customer portals for new work orders.
Hand urgent calls straight to the Dispatcher.
Call customers with quote follow-ups and visit confirmations.
Update work orders with notes, approvals and purchase order numbers.
4. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Calls answered without voicemail: [your target].
Work orders entered complete the first time: [your target].
Quote follow-ups made on time: [your target].
Customer satisfaction: [your target].
5. Required Qualifications and Skills
[1+] years of customer service by phone, ideally in field service, HVAC or a trade.
A calm, clear phone manner with stressed restaurant and store managers.
Accurate typing and note-taking.
Comfort learning [your field service software] and customer portals.
6. Preferred Experience
Experience working in a restaurant or grocery store.
Basic knowledge of the equipment: walk-ins, reach-ins, display cases and ice machines.
Bilingual in English and [language], if your customers need it.
7. Physical Requirements
Sit at a computer with a headset for most of the shift.
Type and work across several screens throughout the day.
With or without reasonable accommodation.
8. Work Environment and Schedule
Office-based at [branch], [shift hours].
Some evening, weekend or holiday shifts: [rotation].
Higher call volume during heat waves.
9. Compensation and Benefits
Pay: [range and hourly or salary basis].
Additional pay: [overtime, bonus or incentive terms, or none].
Benefits: [health, dental, vision, retirement, paid time off, and when they start].
10. Company Culture and Overview
[Two or three sentences on what your company does, the area you serve, and the support a new customer service representative gets in the first 90 days.]
11. How to Apply
[Apply link or email]. Our process: [phone interview, in-person interview, and next steps]. Contact [hiring contact] if you need an accommodation during the application process.
Need help filling this role? HireBus posts the ad, Iris interviews every applicant by phone before you do, and you decide who to hire. Start hiring now
What changes for a CSR at a refrigeration contractor
The callers are store and kitchen managers watching product warm up. A few calls also carry a safety risk or a rule the CSR has to know.
An ammonia smell is a safety call first
Some cold storage sites and food plants run ammonia systems. OSHA says ammonia is corrosive to the skin, eyes and lungs. It treats 300 parts per million as immediately dangerous to life and health. Your script should tell the caller to keep people out of the area and follow the site's emergency plan. Then pass the call to the dispatcher at once. Don't troubleshoot it on the phone. Source: OSHA: Ammonia refrigeration.
Some callers want to buy refrigerant
Store maintenance staff sometimes ask to pick up a cylinder and top off a unit themselves. Federal rules limit sales of most refrigerants to certified technicians, companies that employ one and show the seller proof, and a few other buyers such as resellers. Don't quote a price. Send the request to the office manager, and offer a service call instead. Source: 40 CFR 82.154(c): Refrigerant sales restriction (eCFR).
Case numbers beat "the freezer"
A grocery store can have rows of cases, several walk-ins and a rack room. Ask for the case or door number, the aisle, the reading on the case display and any alarm code. Put all of it on the work order. A tech who walks in knowing it's the dairy case on rack B starts fixing instead of searching.
Portal limits can stop a repair
Chains approve work up to a set amount per work order. When the tech finds a compressor or coil job above that, the CSR files the increase in the portal with the quote and photos. Then call the facilities contact so someone reads it. Note who approved it and when, because billing needs that record later.
How much commercial refrigeration customer service representatives make
Customer service representatives who work for plumbing, heating, and air-conditioning contractors earned a median of $22.22 an hour ($46,210 a year) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s above the $44,770 median for customer service representatives in all industries. About 16,240 of the 2,595,750 customer service representatives in that survey work for HVAC and plumbing contractors.
HVAC and plumbing contractors
$46,210$46,210 median Middle half $39,810–$54,050 10th–90th $36,810–$62,760
All industries
$44,770$44,770 median Middle half $36,870–$51,780 10th–90th $31,750–$63,590
$20k$30k$40k$50k$60k$70k
10th–90th percentileMiddle halfMedianAnnual pay, May 2025. Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics.
Annual pay by percentile
Group
10th
25th
Median
75th
90th
HVAC and plumbing contractors
$36,810
$39,810
$46,210
$54,050
$62,760
All industries
$31,750
$36,870
$44,770
$51,780
$63,590
BLS doesn’t publish pay for refrigeration contractors on their own. These figures cover plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors, which include them. Post a real range for your market in the ad.
Skills to hire for, and what you can teach
Hire for these
A steady voice when a store manager's product is warming up
Typing complete notes while the caller is still talking
Asking the urgency questions on every call, even on busy days
Following up on open quotes without being told
Working in several portals and the field service software at once
Teach these on the job
Walk-in, reach-in, display case and ice machine terms
Each chain's portal steps and approval limits
Your call script, including the ammonia and water-on-the-floor questions
What each service agreement covers
How the branch's on-call rotation works
CSRs work in the field service software where work orders live, a phone queue, and a browser full of chain portals such as ServiceChannel or Corrigo. List the portals your biggest accounts use, and ask candidates which ones they know.
Commercial refrigeration customer service representative interview questions
Two of the 6 questions we'd ask, and what a strong answer sounds like. Ask every candidate the same questions, and rate each answer on your own before you compare notes.
Situational · Urgent call intake
A restaurant manager calls during dinner service: the walk-in cooler is warm. What do you ask?
A strong answer: Equipment and where it is, the current temperature, whether product is at risk, any alarms, water on the floor, whether the outdoor unit runs, and the work order or purchase order, then hands it straight to dispatch.
Behavioral · Calming stressed managers
Tell me about a time you helped a business caller who stood to lose product or sales, like a restaurant with a failing cooler.
A strong answer: Stayed calm, got the key facts fast, took action right away, gave honest updates, and followed up after the problem was handled.
Commercial refrigeration customer service representative KPIs
Each KPI in the template ships without a number. Watch a month of calls and portal orders at both branches. Then set targets from what a good week looked like.
Calls answered without voicemail
Pull answered and missed calls from the phone system by hour and day. Look hardest at evenings and hot afternoons, when a call that rolls to voicemail can be a box losing temperature.
Work orders entered complete the first time
Each week, have the dispatcher flag work orders that needed a callback for missing equipment, location, temperature or purchase order details. Compare that count with all orders the CSR entered.
Quote follow-ups made on time
List quotes waiting for approval with the date sent and the date of each follow-up call or portal note. Count the ones that passed your follow-up window with no contact.
Customer satisfaction
Send a short survey to store and facilities contacts after closed calls, or ask on the confirmation call. Read the comments for CSR issues, such as updates that never came, apart from the repair itself.
Career path
Restaurant or grocery shift leadKnows walk-ins, delivery days and what a warm case costs the store.
Customer service representativeTakes calls and portal orders, chases approvals and confirms visits.
DispatcherAssigns calls to technicians and keeps the board moving.
Office managerLeads the CSR team and turns closed tickets into invoices.
Other roles in a commercial refrigeration business
Commercial refrigeration customer service representative FAQ
Why look for restaurant or grocery experience in a refrigeration CSR?
Someone who has run a kitchen or a grocery department knows what a walk-in holds, when deliveries land and why a manager panics over a warm dairy case. They ask better questions. They stay calm with callers because they've been that caller. The template lists it as preferred, so a strong phone person without it can still learn the equipment.
How much does a commercial refrigeration customer service representative make?
Customer service representatives who work for plumbing, heating, and air-conditioning contractors earned a median of $22.22 an hour ($46,210 a year) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The middle half earned between $39,810 and $54,050 a year. Pay also depends on your local market, experience and overtime.
What should a CSR do with a temperature alarm call at night?
Ask for a reading from a separate thermometer if the store has one, since a bad sensor can trip an alarm. Ask whether the unit is running, whether there's ice or water, and whether product has been moved. Then hand it to the on-call tech through your dispatch steps. Give the store a time to expect a callback.
Who handles a store that disputes an after-hours charge?
The CSR can explain what the service agreement says about after-hours rates and covered equipment, using the agreement record. If the store still disagrees, log the dispute with the ticket number and pass it to the office manager, who can approve a credit. Keep the tech out of the billing argument.
How should a CSR fix a work order the store entered wrong?
In many chain portals the store picks the equipment type from a list. When the order says ice machine but the caller describes a walk-in, call the store and correct the order in your software. Add a portal note too, so the invoice matches what the tech fixed.
Customer Service Representative in other industries
