Losing Star Seller after replying to a customer via Etsy App

[SewSofia]

I received a request to cancel an order 3 days ago - a customer had purchased my digital bag pattern thinking she was buying the actual bag. I wasn't at home over the festive season to access my laptop, so replied to the request by selecting to cancel and refund the order via the Etsy App within a couple of hours of receiving the request. There was an option to include a message with the cancellation which I did. The customer replied to my message and I was satisfied that I had dealt with her request promptly, only to find now that I'll lose my seller status because it's showing that I did not reply to the actual 'help request' message. The message that accompanied the cancellation should count as my reply. I work hard to maintain my star seller status so am disappointed that this has not been taken into account. I have now moved the original message to my spam folder in the hope that this resolves the problem...I just wanted to flag it up as a discrepancy.

[UppNorthCo]

You have to also answer the help request message.  the message in the cancellation doesn't count.  it's been like this since the beginning.

[LynnsLittleShop]

I did this exact same thing and yes, got penalized for it. I'm sorry that message wasn't the right message according to Etsy. 

[ArtDollsbyJD]

@LynnsLittleShop   The message system is what counts for SSP.  So the message in the refund does not for the SSP.   A response was needed for the Help message in messages or it needed to be spammed.

[SewSofia]

I'm back at 100% message response rate now, having moved the original message to my Spam folder. I'll know better next time. Thanks for your input!

[PiecesOfMePaperCraft]

You should have responded to her original message via the app when you cancelled the order. The note in a cancellation notification doesn't count towards Star Seller.

[TheVioletGoat · Accepted solution]

I'm so sorry you found this out the hard way. If I can offer some help, this has always been my procedure on a cancellation request:

First, always respond to any message the customer sent - even if you are going to add a note to the cancellation. I've always done this (even before Star Seller) because sometimes customers don't always know where to look. They may be going back to their original message and see no response and think you're ignoring them. 

Again, I'm so sorry this happened but hopefully sharing your experience can help others prevent this in the future. 

[SewSofia]

Thank you. I'll definitely know better next time. 

[FallenAngelBrass]

This isn't an app problem, it's a matter of replying via the Etsy message system.  Whether using the app or a laptop browser, we still need to respond to all messages via the Etsy messaging system in order to get star seller credit.