Operations Handbook¶

The playbook for Domain 10 (Operations): vendor verification, quality enforcement, support, disputes, moderation, fraud, billing recovery, and incidents. Every admin action referenced here is performed in the admin console and is audit-logged (who, what, when, why). Phase tags: MVP unless marked otherwise.

Vendor approval SOP¶

Target: decision within 2 business days of submission. Only approved vendors can publish profiles or receive RFQs. MVP

Checklist (all items must pass)¶

Kuwait commercial license (الرخصة التجارية) uploaded, legible, and not expired. Verify the license number against the Ministry of Commerce & Industry (MOCI) online lookup; cross-check via the Kuwait Business Center portal where applicable.
Legal name match: business name on the license matches the registered vendor name (Arabic legal name is authoritative; English trade name may differ but must be plausible).
Activity match: licensed activity covers the selected marketplace category (e.g., a catering license cannot register as a photography studio). Mismatch → request changes, not rejection.
Authorized signatory: submitted contact is the license owner/authorized signatory or provides an authorization letter. (Civil ID is not collected from customers; for vendors, signatory identity is confirmed via the license record and a verification call.)
Verification call to the business phone: confirm ownership, category, service areas, and that they understand quotation/response expectations.
Digital footprint sanity check: Instagram/website/Google Maps presence consistent with claimed portfolio. Stock/stolen portfolio images → request changes.
Sanctions/duplicate check: not a previously banned entity, no duplicate account for the same license number.
Profile minimums: at least 1 service listed, 3 gallery images, bilingual description present before first publish (enforced by product; spot-check quality).

Decisions¶

Decision	When	Effect
Approve	All checks pass	Vendor notified; may subscribe and publish
Request changes	Fixable issues (blurry license, wrong category, thin profile)	Application returns to vendor with itemized list; re-enters queue on resubmit
Reject	Failed verification, misrepresentation, prohibited business	Reason code + text mandatory; license number flagged; appeal via support within 30 days

License expiry is tracked; vendors get reminders at 30/14/3 days, and listings auto-suspend on expiry until a renewed license is uploaded (MVP reminder + manual suspend; auto-suspend Scale).

Vendor quality standards & strike policy¶

Standards every active vendor must maintain:

Standard	Threshold	Measured over
RFQ response time	Reply (quote or decline) < 24 h	Rolling 30 days
Quote honor rate	Quoted price honored at booking ≥ 98%	Rolling 90 days
Booking fulfillment	No vendor-fault cancellations < 14 days before event	Per incident
Rating	Average ≥ 3.5 stars after 5+ reviews	Lifetime, rolling window at Scale
Conduct	No off-platform payment steering, harassment, or fake reviews	Per incident

Strike policy (strikes expire after 12 months):

Strike	Trigger examples	Consequence
1st	Repeated slow responses; one honored-price violation	Written warning + coaching email; flagged in admin
2nd	Vendor-fault late cancellation; soliciting off-platform payment	7-day search suppression (hidden from search/featured; existing bookings unaffected)
3rd	Repeat of any above; rating persistently < 3.5	30-day suspension; subscription paused, not refunded
Immediate ban (no strikes)	Fraud, fake license, safety incident, fake reviews at scale, discrimination/harassment	Account terminated; license number blacklisted; open bookings handled case-by-case with customer protection first

Vendors may appeal any strike within 14 days; appeals are reviewed by a different admin than the issuer.

Customer support tiers & SLAs¶

Channels at launch: in-app help form, email, WhatsApp Business (business hours: Sun–Thu 9:00–18:00, Sat 12:00–18:00 Kuwait time). Arabic and English at every tier. MVP

Tier	Who	Handles	First response SLA	Resolution target
T1	Support agent	How-to, account issues, OTP problems, profile edits, basic vendor queries	2 business hours	1 business day
T2	Senior agent / ops specialist	Disputes, refunds, payment mismatches, moderation escalations, vendor strikes	4 business hours	3 business days
T3	Engineering on-call	Bugs, payment/webhook investigation, data corrections	Per bug severity (SLA matrix)	Per severity
VIP lane	Ops lead	Enterprise-plan vendors, live-event-day emergencies (event within 72 h)	30 min during business hours	Same day

Event-day rule: any ticket tagged with an event date within 72 hours jumps to the front of its tier's queue.

Dispute & refund resolution¶

Deposits are collected on-platform via the PSP; the platform captures its commission and settles the vendor's share (no escrow at MVP — automated escrow is Vision; see the commission model). Refunds are enforced through platform policy, PSP refund rails for subscription/deposit payments processed on-platform, and vendor compliance pressure (strikes, payout of goodwill credits at Scale); a refund reverses the related commission and vendor settlement.

flowchart TD
    A[Customer taps 'Request refund' on booking] --> B[Booking → Refund Requested<br/>vendor notified, reason captured]
    B --> C{Vendor responds within 48 h?}
    C -- Accepts refund --> D[Admin processes PSP refund<br/>full/partial, KWD 3dp]
    C -- Proposes partial / disputes --> E[T2 mediation:<br/>review chat thread, quote terms,<br/>cancellation policy, evidence]
    C -- No response --> E
    E --> F{Decision per policy matrix}
    F -- Customer favored --> D
    F -- Vendor favored --> G[Refund denied with written rationale<br/>customer may appeal once to ops lead]
    F -- Split --> H[Partial refund processed<br/>remainder released to vendor]
    D --> I[Booking → Cancelled<br/>both parties notified, case closed]
    H --> I
    G --> J[Booking returns to prior state<br/>case closed]
    I --> K[Audit log + case notes archived]
    J --> K

Policy matrix (defaults, vendor cancellation policy may be stricter in the customer's favor, never against):

Situation	Outcome
Vendor cancels or fails to deliver	100% deposit refund + vendor strike
Customer cancels ≥ 30 days before event	Full refund minus PSP fees
Customer cancels 7–29 days before	Per vendor's published cancellation policy
Customer cancels < 7 days before	Deposit retained unless vendor agrees otherwise
Service materially not as quoted	Mediated; evidence-based partial/full refund

All refunds execute through the PSP against the original transaction; cash/off-platform "refunds" are never brokered by Yam3at. Timelines: mediation decision within 5 business days of escalation; PSP refunds typically settle in 5–10 banking days (KNET/card dependent) — set that expectation in the first reply.

Review & content moderation guidelines¶

Queue sources: auto-flags (profanity list AR/EN, phone/URL patterns), user reports, new-vendor first-content review. Target: flagged items reviewed within 24 h. MVP

Remove when content contains: hate speech or harassment; personal data (phone numbers, addresses) in public reviews; content unrelated to a real transaction; extortion ("pay me to remove this review"); competitor sabotage; sexually explicit or illegal content; fake or incentivized reviews.

Keep even when the vendor objects: harsh but genuine criticism tied to a Completed booking; low ratings without text; mentions of price paid; imperfect Arabic/English.

Rules of practice:

Reviews are only editable/deletable by moderators — vendors can reply once, never edit customer content.
Never edit review text; the decision is binary (keep/remove), with the reason logged.
Vendor profile content: remove off-platform contact details (WhatsApp numbers, Instagram handles in descriptions) pre-booking — link exchange is allowed after a confirmed booking.
Gallery images: must be the vendor's own work; watermarks of other studios → request changes + potential strike.
Appeals: one appeal per item, decided by a second moderator.

Fraud red flags¶

Any two of these together → freeze the relevant action and escalate to T2 before proceeding:

Vendor pushes to move payment off-platform ("pay by bank transfer/link and I'll discount") — the single most common pattern; automatic strike.
New vendor account reusing a license number, phone, or IBAN of a previously banned vendor.
Burst of 5-star reviews from freshly created customer accounts, or reviewer accounts that only ever review one vendor.
Quote dramatically below market followed by pressure for urgent direct payment.
Customer account creating many RFQs with disposable numbers and no event convergence (lead-scraping competitors).
Card testing: repeated small failed subscription payments across cards on one account.
Refund abuse: customer with repeated post-event "not as described" claims across unrelated vendors.
Stolen portfolio: gallery images traceable to other studios (reverse-image spot check).
Mismatch between license activity/holder and the person operating the account.

Actions available: soft-freeze (block new quotes/bookings, allow login), payment hold via PSP where applicable, ban + license blacklist, and PSP/authority reporting for confirmed payment fraud.

Subscription dunning (failed renewals)¶

Applies to auto-renewal failures of vendor plans. Goal: recover revenue without silently cutting off a vendor mid-negotiation. MVP

Day	Action	Vendor state
D0	Renewal charge fails → instant retry once (transient errors only)	Active (grace)
D0	Email + push: "Payment failed, update your card / pay via KNET" with one-tap pay link	Active (grace)
D+3	Retry #2; second notice	Active (grace)
D+7	Retry #3; final notice, WhatsApp/phone touch for Professional/Enterprise by account ops	Active (grace, banner in dashboard)
D+10	Downgrade to Free limits: no new quotes beyond Free quota, featured placement removed; existing bookings, messages, and profile remain live	Past-due
D+30	Profile unpublished from search; data retained	Suspended
D+90	Account archived; reactivation requires re-verification if the license has since expired	Archived

Rules: never interrupt an in-flight booking or ongoing dispute because of dunning; KNET payments cannot be auto-retried like cards, so KNET-paying vendors get pay-link reminders instead of silent retries; all dunning transitions are reversible instantly on successful payment.

Incident response¶

For production incidents (payments down, data exposure, platform outage). Severity follows the bug matrix; S1 triggers this process. MVP

Detect & declare — alert (Sentry/uptime/queue-depth) or report; on-call declares severity in the incident channel; one person becomes Incident Commander (IC).
Stabilize — prefer kill switch/feature flag or rollback over live debugging. Payments-impacting incidents: pause the affected checkout entry points rather than risk double charges.
Communicate — internal updates every 30 min; customer-facing status note (AR/EN) if user-visible for > 30 min; support gets a canned response immediately.
Resolve & verify — fix deployed, smoke tests pass, webhook/queue backlog drained and reconciled (payments incidents require a PSP reconciliation to the fils).
Post-mortem — blameless write-up within 3 business days for S1/S2: timeline, root cause, user/money impact, action items with owners. Payment incidents also produce a reconciliation report.

Special case — data breach involving PII: IC + founder assess scope immediately, rotate credentials, preserve logs, and follow legal counsel on notification obligations before any public statement.

Escalation matrix¶

Situation	First owner	Escalate to	When
Standard support ticket	T1 agent	T2 senior agent	Beyond T1 scope or SLA at risk
Refund/dispute	T2	Ops lead	Amount > KWD 500.000, appeal, or policy gap
Vendor strike / ban	T2	Ops lead	Any ban; any Enterprise-plan vendor
Payment mismatch / reconciliation gap	T2	Engineering on-call + finance	Same day, always
Suspected fraud	Any agent	Ops lead (fraud owner)	Immediately on 2+ red flags
Legal threat, press, regulator contact	Anyone	Founder + counsel	Immediately; no independent replies
S1/S2 production incident	On-call engineer	IC per incident process; founder informed for S1	Immediately
Event-day emergency (event < 72 h)	VIP lane	Ops lead	If unresolved within 2 h