Issue With Multiple "New" Messages In An Old Thread

[BagmakerSupply]

We just had a repeat customer sent us two new messages one right after the other before we could read or respond to the first one. Of course they were appended to an old thread. But according to the New / Unread Message Counter there was only one. (So the counter shows how many threads have an unread message rather than how many unread messages there are.) If we had not scrolled up, just in case, we would have missed the other message. Clearly this does not improve our ability to provide excellent customer service, to reply to all real new messages (not just the fake 'new' of the initial message in a new thread), nor does it "make managing all your messages much more streamlined."

[UniqueGiftOrnaments]

That is awful! I dread what "new improvements" are on the horizon.

[DesertChains]

As predicted.

Here’s what I said 2 months ago when the new process was announced:

”Now, Etsy proposes to combine all messages from a single sender into a single thread. This new approach might turn out to be a better solution than mine, but I think Etsy has misinterpreted the problem.

“The major problem is not keeping inboxes organized and tidy, which Etsy states is the reason for the change. The big problem is receiving a string of messages from a single sender and only needing to respond once to all messages. (Yes, sometimes sellers might miss one, which might lead to the conclusion that the problem was one of organization. With my approach, it wouldn’t matter.)

“Like I said, though, this new system for messages might solve the problems by keeping the messages together.

”I suspect this system will be much more difficult to program than my solution and may be launched with a lot of bugs, which seems unfortunately common. I will be happy to be proven wrong.

”Also, by misinterpreting the problem, Etsy’s solution might create additional problems.”

Copied from https://community.etsy.com/t5/Managing-Your-Shop/An-analysis-of-the-new-Star-Seller-metrics/m-p/1386...

/sigh

[BagmakerSupply]

We just went through some of our earlier messages and found a couple more (which in our concept of customer service required a reply) that we missed because they were mixed in with other messages buried in a single thread.

@DesertChains   We completely agree with you. The change of putting all messages into a single thread is not an improvement, not even to Star Seller. Now you can ignore new inquiries from a customer with impunity as long as you responded to their initial message. And this is used as a measure of how responsive you are to customer inquiries? In theory I thought that the concept of the Star Seller program was a good thing and adjusting the review portion to an average score threshold instead of 95% 5 star reviews was an improvement, made that portion fairer, and was more reflective of a shop's perception by their buyers. But this change to messaging, even if you discount the additional work and complications that it causes to shops that have repeat customers and customers with multiple requests, is a disaster. It no longer accurately measures whether or not a shop handles customer and potential customer inquiries in a timely manner. The badge on your shop home page says "Has a history of replying to messages quickly" Would it not be more accurate to say "Has a history of replying to your FIRST message quickly but may ignore all of your other inquiries". Tweaking a program to make it better and more achievable is not a bad thing. To punish sellers who followed the rules by lowering the bar to eliminate complaints by people who choose to not understand and follow those rules makes a joke of the problem. Adding the blue advisory / warning that a message was considered a "new" message and needed to be replied to was an outstanding idea and probably should have been done proactively when Star Seller rolled out instead of reactively. Kudos to the person who decided to implement that. With that advisory, no one can say "I didn't know I had to answer that message". Appending all messages into a single thread made a disaster of a messaging system that was very good. If Etsy wanted to give more leeway to the message response factor then, in our opinion, it should have changed to something like 90% of new messages need to be replied to in 24 hours and 95% in 48 hours.

Subsystems like messaging should be designed and modified with input and reactions from real users - those who use it day in and day out. Are the changes that I would like to see the best answer for everyone? Of course not. First and foremost the changes have to be what is best for Etsy but not at the expense of those who provide Etsy with a reason to exist. And maybe this is not true but it certainly appears that no thought is given to how these kind of changes will affect the sellers who generate the majority of Etsy's revenue.

End of rant and I'm putting my soap box away.

[PersonalizeStation]

Once again, thank you to all of the sellers who complained about having to say "you're welcome" or "I'm going to respond to your first message to keep things organized" or just mark spam messages as spam. Or just a simple thanks for not just taking two seconds to read the SSP requirements which have been on the dashboard in plain sight. Without you, we wouldn't have needed this 'improvement.' *sarcasm*

Now the messaging system is a pile of hot mess for many sellers. 

[BagmakerSupply]

As an "update", we just received a call from a customer with whom we (were) maintaining several individual message threads about separate and distinct requests. She thought that we were ignoring her on a couple of these because she had not seen our reply. Well even though we replied in the appropriate threads the responses were attached to an unrelated thread and the replies were all intermingled. The unread message indicator did not show her how many unread message in that thread, and when she read the most recent reply the indicator disappeared so she had no reason to think that there were additional unread messages in that thread. We now feel we have to eMail every customer in this situation a copy of the message so we have some level of comfort that they will see it. We would really like to hear how anyone thinks that this "improvement" makes managing messages easier or helps us provide better customer service. The only benefit I see is making more people eligible for Star Seller.

[PersonalizeStation]

"The only benefit I see is making more people eligible for Star Seller."

And that's nutty, right? Answering messages is the one thing we all have control over in regards to the SSP.

Yet here we are with sellers still coming to the forums talking about older messages that messed up their stats. 

[ChillwolfArt]

@BagmakerSupply 

Oh good grief.

[PersonalizeStation]

@BagmakerSupply 

What you explained with your situation worries me.

From October to December each year, I get anywhere from 10 to 50 messages a day. If customers think we're ignoring them, we not only have to worry about losing sales, but we have to worry about those who have ordered and then sent a message with something important, and then leave a review in regards to how we have cruddy customer service. In reality, it's this new messaging system that did not need any tampering with...in my opinion. 

How do we explain these things to our customers? Oh, it was Etsy's fault. Here's some screenshots (if available) that I did respond and blah blah blah. 

[ChillwolfArt]

"Improvements" are only improvements when they are exactly that.; make something better than what it was before. And not create more confusion and stress for users; Sellers and Buyers alike.  From the Threads I've been seeing, the opposite is happening.

[PersonalizeStation]

Amen sister! : - D

[BagmakerSupply]

@PersonalizeStation   For us this is the beginning of our busy season on Etsy as artisans start to manufacture their holiday wares. We get lots of the "do the finishes match" questions and requests for custom quantity packs, many from our repeat customers. Sometimes they send two or three individual questions. Sure it was a nuisance to reply to a new thread with "We have answered your question in our reply at https://etsy.com/messages[MESSAGE_ID]" when we could combine the answers but having to scroll back through EVERY convo / message thread now to make sure we did not miss a message is a much larger time waster and aggrevation.

[PersonalizeStation]

I would love to say I hope Etsy sorts this out but I think to them, this is sorting it out...."fixing" an issue that didn't exist to begin with. 

[BagmakerSupply]

Just as a reminder warning, (on desktop using a browser at least) the number on the inbox tab indicates the number of unread THREADS not the number of unread MESSAGES. We would have missed a second message from one buyer if we had not scrolled up to check just in case.