Our office hours are:

• 8am to 4pm, Monday to Thursday.
• 8am to 2pm on Fridays

Important: We are based in South Africa, and our timezone is GMT +02:00. See how that converts to your own timezone HERE.

If you need support after hours (see Office Hours), we charge a rate of x1.5 the standard hourly rate, and no free support is available. After-hours support still depends on the availability of a team member, as we do not have a dedicated 24-hour support team.

Over the past decade, Neil can count on one hand the number of times that a Genio representative has had to be on-site for a technical support issue. In the vast majority of cases, a specialized person is not needed.

If we determine that the problem cannot be repaired remotely, or that it will be cheaper or more efficient to support you in person, we will likely suggest that you get a local electrician, mechanic or gas installer to assist you. There are also often professional roaster technicians in your country who do technical support for a living. In these cases, we will work with any such professionals to resolve the problem as soon as possible.

Remember that to us and other professionals in their respective fields, roasters are just a combination of nuts and bolts. We understand how they work, and everything inside a machine is well known to industry professionals; gas burners are what gas installers deal with every day. VSD drives are used in hundreds of applications. Bearings are a mechanic's bread and butter... The point is that roasters are not made of magic. People in the engineering profession understand engineering applications, even if they have never worked on a roaster specifically.

In the very unlikely case that no one can help you, we can certainly arrange to fly out to your country to assist you. However, this is a last-resort and has not been necessary in the past 10 years of Genio's existence.

We offer free support for quick, one-answer questions that can easily be resolved.
We mostly communicate through WhatsApp, Telegram or Email.

• Example 1:
  Customer: "My lights are flashing on and off. What do I do?
  Genio: "Release your e-stop button"
• Example 2:
  Customer: "My fan won't turn and the flames look yellow"
  Genio: "Send us a video of the inside of your fan. The Disassembly video is here."
  Customer: "Ok, I've sent the video"
  Genio: "Your fan needs to be cleaned. See our article on fan cleaning here."
• Example 3:
  Customer: "My gas won't go to full pressure. How can I fix it"
  Genio: "Check our Knowledge Base article on gas valve calibration here."
  Customer: "I did that but it still doesn't work."
  Genio: "Ok, let's schedule a support call. Book a call with us here."

We offer paid technical support on technical issues that cannot be resolved in a short WhatsApp question-and-answer session.

• Example 1:
  Customer: "My drum is making a weird noise. I have already adjusted it as per your instruction video on the Customer Hub. I have also regreased the bearings as per your Knowledge Base article. What do I do now?"
  Genio: "Thanks for following all of the help. Let's book a video call together so that we can run through the machine and see what the problem could be. Click on this link to book a paid support call."

For machines that are still under warranty, we offer free technical support. However, in the event of the problem not being a direct cause of failure on the machine's part, you will still be invoiced as if it were regular Paid Support. Standard Office Hours apply, and after-hours support will be billed at the regular after-hours rate even if the machine is still under warranty.

• Example 1:
  Customer: "My gas burner won't ignite."
  Genio: "Great, let's book a free support call since your machine is still under warranty."
  Customer: "We've spent 30 minutes and I only now realized that my gas cylinder was empty all the time."
  Genio: "I'm glad we resolved your problem. Since your gas supply is not part of the roaster and therefore not covered under warranty, we will send you an invoice for 1 hour of technical support shortly."

You are looking at the problem and seeing it first-hand. Now we have to see what you are seeing. The difference is that we don't look at the same things you are looking at.

To understand your problem, we need context of the whole situation. For example, if your burner is not igniting, we don't need video footage of the burner without a flame. We need videos of everything that affects the burner.

With this in mind, when you communicate the problem to us, please do the following:

1. Start by sending us a video of your entire roastery. Brag a little and give us an overview of your shop, your roaster's position within the shop, the tools that you have available, the entire ventilation system, the gas supply etc. We want to see everything as if we've never been to your shop ever before. We might spot something that you never even thought was relevant.
2. Send us a video of your typical morning routine, as if you're teaching us how you go about your day. This startup procedure video will often show us everything we need to see.
3. Move slowly while you take videos. We need to see how things move when they move and what is moving or not.
4. Use a proper camera with high-quality, well-lit and in-focus footage.
5. Show us the inside, rear, front and side of your roaster, making sure to get as much into the frame as possible. Don't zoom in close to the thing you have a question about. Instead, give us a full picture of the whole roaster so that we can get context of everything around the problem.
6. If you make a video of the tablet, be sure to video the entire tablet and even the controls. We need to see everything as a whole. Move slowly and explain what you see.

The better the information that you share with us beforehand, the quicker the support call will go, saving you time and money. In many cases, we can even resolve the issue without needing paid support if the information that you provided to us was good enough to begin with. In fact, that's the only reason why we need to set up a support call: because the information provided to us was not sufficient.

It is important for us to understand the context around the problem. With this, we mean everything that has happened that we don't know about, for example:

• Did you exchange gas bottles yesterday?
• Does the issue only happen when you do X?
• Did you clean the fan last week?
• Did someone work on the the machine recently?
• Did you move the roaster to a new location recently?
• Did you change the ventilation piping, or have it cleaned?
• Has the roaster been standing for the past few months?

The context around the problem often tells us exactly what we need to know to diagnose the problem. And we only find out about it after 2-hours of online support.

Please tell us anything that could be relevant, even if it is a small thing. This can help us to give you better, more affordable service and get you roasting again in a shorter period of time.

To prepare for a support call, it is important to have the following items in place before the call:

• Strong internet connection
• Understand and speak English
• You must be at the roaster machine
• Be able to receive video calls via Google Meet
• Wear headphones during the call to enable better communication
• Have some basic tools available (Allen Keys, Spanners / Wrenches, Multimeter, Screw Drivers etc)
• Late arrivals or no-shows will be charged at the normal rates
• Up to 30 minutes of extra time can be used after the quoted time without additional fees. Any more time will be billed at the normal hourly rate and may need to be rescheduled for a later time.

Your roaster's tablet has Google Meets installed and comes with a camera. It is ideal to do the support call from since you can share your screen to allow us to see the ProRoast app while we are working. To join the call from the tablet, follow these instructions.

Customers are often tense, fed up and frustrated by the time they call us. We are here to help, and we see ourselves as part of your team. Let's work together to find a solution professionally and courteously. 

As soon as it occurs!! We often hear "It's been like this for months now". Please remember that we only know that there is a problem if it is reported to us. If the issue was never reported to us, it might be a 3-month problem for you, but to us, it is a 1-minute problem. Additionally, if problems are not reported to us in a timely fashion, they will likely not be covered under warranty.

One of the biggest issues we face is language and cultural barriers. At Genio Roaster, we speak English. We need you to also speak English fluently. If we cannot understand each other, we cannot have a conversation. The frustration levels quickly boil over when we cannot communicate, and the call takes twice as long to convey even the simplest of concepts.

If your English is not good, we can help you by getting a translator to join in on the call. Rather let us know beforehand so that we can book a translator instead of wasting time, energy and money on trying to communicate. Remember that we live in a digital age where we can get a translator on the line within a few hours.

You would be surprised at how many times we set up support calls only to have the customer join the call while still at home or not answering at all. Let's play nice and work together. We cannot help you if you are not at the roaster, if you have no coffee to roast, if you're an hour late etc.

Please be at the roastery at the time of our call. Double-check that the time zones in the calendar invite are correct. Have your Google Meet App installed and ready. The machine should ideally be cool and you must have gas, electricity and beans ready to roast. 

Our scheduling system called Calendly allows you to see our availability. If there is a slot open, feel free to book a call for that time. The system will automatically manage the following:

1. Only show the times that we are available
2. Make payment for the support call
3. Manage time-zones
4. Book a Google Meet calendar meeting
5. Send reminder emails and notifications
6. Send support call documentation
7. Send satisfaction questionnaires after the call
8. Manage rescheduling

Please note that video calls are recorded and you are welcome to request a copy of the recording.

We charge US$120 per hour (or any part thereof) for technical support during normal office hours (see office hours).

If you are prudent in following all of the steps listed above, we will reduce your cost to US$100 per hour. Please brag about it to us. Tell us about how you prepared for the call and how diligent you were. It helps us if you are prepared, and we are more than happy to accommodate you accordingly.

For online Technical Support, we accept payments via EFT, Credit Card or PayPal. International customers often prefer paying via Credit Card or PayPal.

Speak to us to get an invoice and online payment links.

What often happens after a support session is that something needs to be tested before we can be sure that the problem is fixed. If you don't let us know, we will assume that the problem is indeed fixed. If you contact us a month later saying that the problem is still there, we will treat it as a new support call because we never heard back from you in the first place.

We want to be a part of your successes and your frustrations. Allow us to be just that by communicating with us about what makes you happy and unhappy. We will celebrate with you, and fix that which you are unhappy with to the very best of our abilities.

We need your feedback to improve our service delivery to you. If you found the call helpful or even unhelpful in any way, we need to know about this. Be sure to get in touch with Genio through our various channels to give feedback (good or bad) about your experience in dealing with our team.