Do I need to send the final message to keep my Star Seller response rate?

[TartanStudioShop]

A customer recently left me a 5-star review, then I sent them a message saying thank you. They responded saying:

"It was my pleasure, keep up the good work - your socks are FAB!!!" 

I didn't respond to this and now, in the Star Seller dashboard, I see "1 message got a reply after 24 hours"

Other than this message, it's only spam I haven't responded to.

Is this one affecting my Star Seller response rate?

[PriddeyThings]

Have you downloaded the messages CSV to see what that says? And no, you only need to answer the first message in a thread, or send to spam. If you don't send to spam, you have to respond. 

[TartanStudioShop]

I have now. Turns out, the message affecting my response rate is spam (𝐄𝐭𝐬𝐲 𝐒𝐭a𝐟𝐟) but I didn't mark it as Spam, I deleted it. This is why it affected my score.

I've now moved it back to inbox, then marked as spam. Hopefully this fixes my score. 

[mommawhazelsquilts]

Only if the buyer responded in a different thread or started one of his own.

Was the message accompanied by a blue banner?

[BootifulLabels · Accepted solution]

"Other than this message, it's only spam I haven't responded to."

Did you mark the spam messages as spam, or just ignore them? Noone reads your messages to see what they are about, if it is spam you have to mark it as spam. Download the file and see what you missed.  

[BagmakerSupply]

@TartanStudioShop: "Do I need to send the final message to keep my Star Seller response rate?" The Star Seller metric is NOT all new messages but only the first message of all new incoming threads.

A controversial workaround : if the unanswered new thread is not a Help Request, at least for the time being, it appears that marking an unanswered new thread as SPAM (even after the 24 hour deadline has passed) will cause your reply percentage to change in a day or two if the original message was within the current star seller period (but not retroactively). Note that subsequent messages from that account may go directly to the SPAM folder.

[JDTotesnDolls]

No.  You only need to respond to the new message at the beginning.  Either answer or spam.