Hidden Message Response Rate Criteria - SELLERS, PLEASE READ

[MacyMollyRatSupplies]

I was just told by two Technical Support agents that if customers who have reached out to you via messaging close their Etsy account at any time, the message response you provide does not get included in your Star Seller statistic. This means that we, as Sellers, are responsible for the users' continued engagement with the Etsy platform even after they have interacted with us.

When asked to direct me to where this is included in the Star Seller Message Response Rate Badge criteria, I've been met with 4 different "Technical Support Agents" copy and pasting the exact same response about how the message needs to be responded to within 24 hours. 

[JJewellerySuppliesUK]

Only the past 3 months are counted for Star Seller so I doubt if we would get hit with many of those.  The system is fully automated and Etsy never changes anything if sellers feel they have an issue so I wouldn't waste any more time trying to get Etsy staff to resolve anything. 

[CarpetCollectionAU]

I would imagine that, if the account was closed then it would be impossible to reply anyway.

I think that is what the Support agents are saying. It is the same with all those "scam" messages from accounts which which Etsy closes before we have a chance to reply.

So, either the account was active and needed a reply within 24 hours or it was closed in which case it would be impossible to respond.

Just send the offending message to "Spam".

edited to add: I believe Support was advising "does not get included in your Star Seller statistic" meaning that you will not be "dinged" if the account was closed before you could reply BUT within 24 hours of receiving it.

If you replied after 24 hours, but the account was closed, then, yes, your response will be "late" because 24 hours passed before the reply

[MacyMollyRatSupplies]

That's what was interesting about it. We launched a few social post to encourage engagement and received a handful of messages shortly after. After replying to them within the 24 hour and see they did not get included in our analytics, we reached out to support for clarification. They initially said they should count towards our analytics and may take 48 hours. After seeing they still weren't included, I pressed for clarification.

Two technical agents mentioned that some of the accounts were "not active as of this moment", thus didn't get included in our stats. When I began asking for clarity on this, I began to only receiving copy-paste responses saying how important it is to reply within 24 hours. 

My biggest issue is the lack of clarification on the criteria. Why am I responsible for what the user does after we have communicated?

An example of the impact is the following:

19 out of 20 messages have been responded to within 24 hours, giving a 95% scoring. If any of these users close out of Etsy within the review period (per Supports own insinuation), this now decreases to 18 out of 19 messages - dropping the score to 94%. 

It is frustrating that unknown conditions like this can impact a Seller so massively given the impact Star Seller has on the search algorithm, and all we can do is assume the reasons why because the Technical Support team refuses to engage past their generic response system.

[PWOriginals]

I'm confused -

I see you don't have the message badge in your shop now, which would have covered Jan/Feb/Mar 2024. Were some of those 20 messages received in that timeframe?

You posted on FB for "engagement" and received 20 messages in your shop, but maybe some of those folks closed their account immediately after contacting you or right after you responded (but one message failed the 24-hour response test)? If some of those contacts closed their account within 24 hours, they wouldn't be counted if they're no longer active, as stats update after the 24-hour response time?

Just trying to wrap my head around your question.

[Adorabilities]

So you can still see the message thread, but it doesn't show up on the CSV? And you answered within 24 hours? And the customer closed their account on their own?

That's really odd. All messages not sent to spam should be counted, regardless of the current status of a legitimate buyer's account. Fortunately, I can't imagine that scenario would happen often.