June 5, 2025 • 26 mins
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In this episode, we’re talking about the busy summer season for refrigeration technicians and the vital importance of properly training and preparing. The heat increases demand on refrigeration systems, leading to an uptick in service calls and often long workdays. Here we’ll share year-round training tips to reduce troubleshooting time and enhance efficiency on service calls, including preventive maintenance, common issues to check for, and strategies for reducing callback issues. Investing in training and knowing what to expect on service calls will greatly reduce your workload and make customers very happy.
In this episode, we discuss:
-Summer heat and increased workload
-Reducing service call time
-What to do in spring to prepare for summer
-Preventative maintenance tips
-Common summer refrigeration system issues
-Preacting under pressure
-Challenges and solutions in the supermarket industry
-Continuous learning and investing in training
-Preparing for the summer season
-Value of structured training
Helpful Links & Resources:
Episode 300. The Power of Training and Development in Refrigeration with Andrew Freeburg
Episode 228. Tips for Faster Service Calls & Better Time Management
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What's up everyone? Welcome to the Refrigeration Minter podcast. So I remember times in the summer when it was really hot. And I've got back to back to back calls. Have you ever been there? 'cause summer is coming soon and we know it's gonna heat up and there's gonna be a lot more work because what does the heat do?
(00:01):
The thing is, is that. I've seen a time and time again. Those technicians that continually invest themselves, even in the summertime when it's really busy, it's reducing their service call time. They're able to solve problems quicker, and then they're not working as long as our, that whole team that are firing on all cylinders are not working as long hours.
Is so, so important. Maybe you don't do as much training in the summertime, but you still need to do that. Training a couple hours a week is a game changer for you. Even if you're working those 60, 70 hours a week, a couple hours is really gonna help you. 'cause maybe that next week it will help reduce that burden on you or your team or on the on-call person for sure.
Usually it's not as a big as a deal, but it's still a big deal. That stuff could build up over the wintertime where the system is not running as hard. And so that wasn't a big deal in the wintertime, but now you're coming into summer. That is important and getting to that is really key. 'cause I remember a lot of the times I would go out and I'd be doing maintenance and we'd be behind maintenances.
I wasn't. It just took me a lot longer to troubleshoot. I solved the problem. Don't get me wrong, I solved the problem, but I was there a lot of extra time that I didn't have to be because my skill level wasn't up there. 'cause I wasn't doing the training that I see some technicians coming through the refrigeration mentor programs, even in the summertime coming in.
All of a sudden you get high humidity in that store or high temperatures in that store. It's gonna affect the way those systems work, especially open display cases. For an example, now I've got a bunch of open display cases instead of that, that. Building running at 75 or 20 degrees. We are running at 85 in the store, or 90 or 30, 35 degrees really hot in the store.
They know it's difficult, but those technicians want it. They're like, listen, if I learn this now, it's gonna pay off tomorrow. And consistently see reducing calls, call times. This helps out because especially if you have things that you, family things or or sporting events that you have, or extracurricular hobbies that you have outside of work that now, if you can help troubleshoot, reduce your troubleshooting, work with your team.
So now, if that lead tech is not getting 15 calls or 20 calls a day from all these different technicians, how does that help your business? How does that help the summer? And, , that looks great to customers because now those systems aren't going down as much into summertime. They're, you're solving the problems quicker and 'cause there's so much work out there.
The system not fine tuned. We're always staying up to date, so we're not over leveraging ourselves. We would love to we feel bad, but we're making sure that our, our team is prepared. And that's from doing training and helping them grow. 'cause there's a, the training never stops. I did a, a podcast with my good friend Andrew Freeberg, and we talked about he's doing it 18 years, tens of thousands of service calls and continued to invest and learn on himself.
They don't want to be calling the racks down, and they're embarrassed to call because they, they feel like they should know it, but they were put on belts and filters or drains and fan motors for the last three or four, four years, or five years, whatever it is. They've been doing these similar, 'cause you just get, they just been sent to those calls by either service managers, dispatch, business owner, you need someone.
Say, listen, if I do this refrigeration mentor supermarket program, or CO2 program or any program, and I get the certificate and I pass all the quizzes and all the assignments, and I put the work in and I watch the videos and I do the, I listen to the podcasts and I do the work, will you pay for that course?
Calling for backup. Sometimes not having that opportunity to call people and then you're just working long hours, long days. But I know as I started to get better, I was reducing those calls, being able to make a phone call to a non-urgent call as well. I got five calls open. I know three of them aren't urgent.
Going to one training. I've seen this over decades of doing trainings now over, well over a decade. I've been doing training where someone comes in for a training or a contractor sends their technicians in for a training, and they took this training and they're like, well, they should be good now forever.
Reduce this. How do I help them to help me and help the business? Because 100% they don't want to be calling all the time. They don't. They wanna be able to solve the problem on their own. I've talked to so many technicians, they're like, I just don't know. Trevor, I don't, I don't have anyone to turn to, to ask the question because my lead technician was, didn't come from a supermarket background.
Yeah. I got some great mentors, some great people to help me out and it's, it's working, but it's taking, taking forever because I don't like calling and when I do call it's, , they're in the middle of a job, they gotta stop everything, what to do, and it, they feel bad about it. There's other situations where I talk to technicians well, and I make a phone call.
And now if we can bring them a ton of value. From all, all parts of all parts of your business. From the technician to the lead tech, to the service manager, to the director, to the business owner. That is game changing stuff and this is what end users are looking for. Companies that have teams that want to learn, invest, and grow in themselves and grow and invest in themselves.
Remember, there's more load on that system. You need more refrigerant and it's gonna be doing more work. This is something that's super understandable and it's preventable. It can be preventable. There's always issues out there. But if you're at a system and you see it's in the middle of like, it's in the springtime, it's cold out, and you look at the receiver level and it is low.
And some, sometimes it's technicians coming in that's been doing this for six or seven years and they just needed a fire litten under them and be like, holy smokes. There is still so much to learn in this industry because there's different controllers, there's different valves, there's different regulators.
Because if they're not doing it right, when it's slow, it's even worse when they're not doing it right. When there's a lot of calls. And this is where the biggest amount of callbacks are coming is in the summertime. If you're a business owner, check that right now. When is your biggest amount of callbacks?
Two years ago, leveling them up at a fast track rate so they feel confident, and this is it. This is one of the biggest things that I see technicians and companies who will hire us to train them, those three or four or five technicians in that company that start firing on all cylinders, margins go up, which is good to the business, but the morale goes up.
Really investing in yourself? You gotta think about that. Think about the work that you're putting in today. Is it benefiting you for tomorrow? 'cause if you're just putting out fires today. And just, just doing the bare minimum. How is that helping you for tomorrow? How's it leveling you up? How's it helping?
It doesn't happen overnight for sure, but it does. Happen and it's putting that work in. So just think about that. How do you wanna benefit yourself tomorrow? Your future self will be so happy with you. It, it will be time and time again. Work with technicians who now are encouraging, other techs are training the other techs more easier, being able to walk through service call instead of 25 minutes on a call with a tech.
(00:22):
I really encourage, , all the technicians out there to. Have some accountability. , Take ownership of what you do and pride in your work. And I see the difference. I definitely see the difference of people coming into the program who finish the program, who do the quizzes, do the assignments, go and do the field work, actually go out and do that work on those assistant, those technicians, they are far surpassing all the other technicians who are not investing in in themselves and leveling up.
It's refrigeration. It is refrigeration. How do we do a more professional? We are a profession. I'm one of the top ones in the world. Highly skilled ones. We deal with plumbing. We deal with electrical, we deal with labor work, we deal with thermodynamics. We deal with piping. We deal, deal with sizing designer.
We have tons of trainings always on the go here at Refrigeration Center to level you up. If you're a business owner and you want to fast track your team. You want to, or you're a service technician and you're taking all these calls and then drowning you from the calls that you need to do, or the the support that you need to do to your customer or to other parts of your team.
I see it. I see it in our refrigeration mentor hub. The technicians there are growing solving problems that their lead technicians aren't solving. And this is great because they're investing that time. They're investing the time to learn and grow. So happy for them. And if you're out there and you're listening to this.
I was on this call and this was the issue, is having the, this is what I was seeing. What would the approach you would take? That's game changing. Right there can help spare you weeks and weeks of trying to find a root cause of an issue. Just not even finding it at all. Being like, okay, I just gotta move on 'cause I can't figure this out.
What's up everyone? Welcome to the Refrigeration Minter podcast. So I remember times in the summer when it was really hot. And I've got back to back to back calls. Have you ever been there? 'cause summer is coming soon and we know it's gonna heat up and there's gonna be a lot more work because what does the heat do?
(00:01):
The thing is, is that. I've seen a time and time again. Those technicians that continually invest themselves, even in the summertime when it's really busy, it's reducing their service call time. They're able to solve problems quicker, and then they're not working as long as our, that whole team that are firing on all cylinders are not working as long hours.
Is so, so important. Maybe you don't do as much training in the summertime, but you still need to do that. Training a couple hours a week is a game changer for you. Even if you're working those 60, 70 hours a week, a couple hours is really gonna help you. 'cause maybe that next week it will help reduce that burden on you or your team or on the on-call person for sure.
Usually it's not as a big as a deal, but it's still a big deal. That stuff could build up over the wintertime where the system is not running as hard. And so that wasn't a big deal in the wintertime, but now you're coming into summer. That is important and getting to that is really key. 'cause I remember a lot of the times I would go out and I'd be doing maintenance and we'd be behind maintenances.
I wasn't. It just took me a lot longer to troubleshoot. I solved the problem. Don't get me wrong, I solved the problem, but I was there a lot of extra time that I didn't have to be because my skill level wasn't up there. 'cause I wasn't doing the training that I see some technicians coming through the refrigeration mentor programs, even in the summertime coming in.
All of a sudden you get high humidity in that store or high temperatures in that store. It's gonna affect the way those systems work, especially open display cases. For an example, now I've got a bunch of open display cases instead of that, that. Building running at 75 or 20 degrees. We are running at 85 in the store, or 90 or 30, 35 degrees really hot in the store.
They know it's difficult, but those technicians want it. They're like, listen, if I learn this now, it's gonna pay off tomorrow. And consistently see reducing calls, call times. This helps out because especially if you have things that you, family things or or sporting events that you have, or extracurricular hobbies that you have outside of work that now, if you can help troubleshoot, reduce your troubleshooting, work with your team.
So now, if that lead tech is not getting 15 calls or 20 calls a day from all these different technicians, how does that help your business? How does that help the summer? And, , that looks great to customers because now those systems aren't going down as much into summertime. They're, you're solving the problems quicker and 'cause there's so much work out there.
The system not fine tuned. We're always staying up to date, so we're not over leveraging ourselves. We would love to we feel bad, but we're making sure that our, our team is prepared. And that's from doing training and helping them grow. 'cause there's a, the training never stops. I did a, a podcast with my good friend Andrew Freeberg, and we talked about he's doing it 18 years, tens of thousands of service calls and continued to invest and learn on himself.
They don't want to be calling the racks down, and they're embarrassed to call because they, they feel like they should know it, but they were put on belts and filters or drains and fan motors for the last three or four, four years, or five years, whatever it is. They've been doing these similar, 'cause you just get, they just been sent to those calls by either service managers, dispatch, business owner, you need someone.
Say, listen, if I do this refrigeration mentor supermarket program, or CO2 program or any program, and I get the certificate and I pass all the quizzes and all the assignments, and I put the work in and I watch the videos and I do the, I listen to the podcasts and I do the work, will you pay for that course?
Calling for backup. Sometimes not having that opportunity to call people and then you're just working long hours, long days. But I know as I started to get better, I was reducing those calls, being able to make a phone call to a non-urgent call as well. I got five calls open. I know three of them aren't urgent.
Going to one training. I've seen this over decades of doing trainings now over, well over a decade. I've been doing training where someone comes in for a training or a contractor sends their technicians in for a training, and they took this training and they're like, well, they should be good now forever.
Reduce this. How do I help them to help me and help the business? Because 100% they don't want to be calling all the time. They don't. They wanna be able to solve the problem on their own. I've talked to so many technicians, they're like, I just don't know. Trevor, I don't, I don't have anyone to turn to, to ask the question because my lead technician was, didn't come from a supermarket background.
Yeah. I got some great mentors, some great people to help me out and it's, it's working, but it's taking, taking forever because I don't like calling and when I do call it's, , they're in the middle of a job, they gotta stop everything, what to do, and it, they feel bad about it. There's other situations where I talk to technicians well, and I make a phone call.
And now if we can bring them a ton of value. From all, all parts of all parts of your business. From the technician to the lead tech, to the service manager, to the director, to the business owner. That is game changing stuff and this is what end users are looking for. Companies that have teams that want to learn, invest, and grow in themselves and grow and invest in themselves.
Remember, there's more load on that system. You need more refrigerant and it's gonna be doing more work. This is something that's super understandable and it's preventable. It can be preventable. There's always issues out there. But if you're at a system and you see it's in the middle of like, it's in the springtime, it's cold out, and you look at the receiver level and it is low.
And some, sometimes it's technicians coming in that's been doing this for six or seven years and they just needed a fire litten under them and be like, holy smokes. There is still so much to learn in this industry because there's different controllers, there's different valves, there's different regulators.
Because if they're not doing it right, when it's slow, it's even worse when they're not doing it right. When there's a lot of calls. And this is where the biggest amount of callbacks are coming is in the summertime. If you're a business owner, check that right now. When is your biggest amount of callbacks?
Two years ago, leveling them up at a fast track rate so they feel confident, and this is it. This is one of the biggest things that I see technicians and companies who will hire us to train them, those three or four or five technicians in that company that start firing on all cylinders, margins go up, which is good to the business, but the morale goes up.
Really investing in yourself? You gotta think about that. Think about the work that you're putting in today. Is it benefiting you for tomorrow? 'cause if you're just putting out fires today. And just, just doing the bare minimum. How is that helping you for tomorrow? How's it leveling you up? How's it helping?
It doesn't happen overnight for sure, but it does. Happen and it's putting that work in. So just think about that. How do you wanna benefit yourself tomorrow? Your future self will be so happy with you. It, it will be time and time again. Work with technicians who now are encouraging, other techs are training the other techs more easier, being able to walk through service call instead of 25 minutes on a call with a tech.
(00:22):
I really encourage, , all the technicians out there to. Have some accountability. , Take ownership of what you do and pride in your work. And I see the difference. I definitely see the difference of people coming into the program who finish the program, who do the quizzes, do the assignments, go and do the field work, actually go out and do that work on those assistant, those technicians, they are far surpassing all the other technicians who are not investing in in themselves and leveling up.
It's refrigeration. It is refrigeration. How do we do a more professional? We are a profession. I'm one of the top ones in the world. Highly skilled ones. We deal with plumbing. We deal with electrical, we deal with labor work, we deal with thermodynamics. We deal with piping. We deal, deal with sizing designer.
We have tons of trainings always on the go here at Refrigeration Center to level you up. If you're a business owner and you want to fast track your team. You want to, or you're a service technician and you're taking all these calls and then drowning you from the calls that you need to do, or the the support that you need to do to your customer or to other parts of your team.
I see it. I see it in our refrigeration mentor hub. The technicians there are growing solving problems that their lead technicians aren't solving. And this is great because they're investing that time. They're investing the time to learn and grow. So happy for them. And if you're out there and you're listening to this.
I was on this call and this was the issue, is having the, this is what I was seeing. What would the approach you would take? That's game changing. Right there can help spare you weeks and weeks of trying to find a root cause of an issue. Just not even finding it at all. Being like, okay, I just gotta move on 'cause I can't figure this out.
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