Message Response Rate Impacted by Duplicate Conversation

[DXFdesigner]

I have noticed that a duplicate conversation thread wrongfully impacted my message response rate. The buyer whom I was talking with was responded to within minutes on the main thread, and they even left a 5-star review for the fast service. I did not respond on the duplicate thread because that would be redundant, and all questions were answered in the ongoing conversation.

I talked with Ferlyn at Etsy, and they redirected my issue here, where there is hopefully a proper solution.

[WitticismsRus]

@DXFdesigner 

The live chat and phone support folks are just a call center and they tend to just go by whatever the Help Center articles say. Those Help Center articles direct sellers to post in this forum for issues with star seller. Unfortunately etsy changed this to a peer to peer support forum a couple of years ago so it's just us sellers here. All we can do is make suggestions.  

Short answer is there is nothing for etsy to fix as it's working as they intended it to. You need to mark that duplicate message as spam and it will be removed from the calculation in a day or two. Etsy won't fix it for you, you will have to mark it as spam. 

For future reference, if star seller is important to you then you really should read and review the info etsy has provided about it.

Etsy is pretty clear about how the message response rate is calculated in help center here https://help.etsy.com/hc/en-us/articles/4403058372503-How-to-Become-a-Star-Seller?segment=selling

There is a highlighted bit under message response rate info that says "The Message response rate only applies to the first message in a thread. Initial messages from both buyers and sellers on Etsy are counted towards the Message response rate. "

That means ALL messages. It also means each individual message thread so if someone sends you 5 different messages with 5 questions instead of putting them in the same message chain you need to respond to all 5 of them. The system is completely automated and doesn't know if the message is from a buyer or another seller. It just sees a message and calculated the response time. That's just how it works.

You can try marking the message as spam now and it should be removed from the calculation in a few days.

Bottom line...you have to either reply or mark as spam.

[UniqueGiftOrnaments]

Etsy won't fix it. You can put that message into spam and it should bring your percentage back up.

[HtoHdesign · Accepted solution]

Hey There!

The star seller message response rate includes all new messages including duplicate messages. If you receive duplicate messages or multiple threads, you should respond to each thread within 24 hours, directing buyers to the main message thread for discussion. Unwanted messages may be marked as spam.

In the new-and-improved Messages experience that started this July,  we started to combine messages from the same buyer into a single thread. You can learn more about this and some other exciting changes here. 

Thanks!

[DesertChains]

It doesn’t matter whether or not you answered questions or provided information. It doesn't matter if a message doesn't need a response. It doesn’t matter if you’re the seller or the buyer. It doesn't matter if the message you received is a duplicate. The system only determines whether or not you replied to an individual message. If you didn't respond or send a message to your spam folder, you are going to get rated down. That's how it works.

Right or wrong, the program has worked this way for a year! The instructions for meeting this metric are clearly stated and easily accessible. Daily posts in the forums also discuss this exact topic.

Send the missed messages to spam. Your stats will update in a day or two.