Message Response Rate

[EndToEndAudio]

My message response rate is down when I know I respond very quickly. Most of the times Etsy does not 'register' the response. For instance, just now I had a back and forth with a customer of a few messages and it wasn't until many messages into the exchange did the 'fast response' message pop up. 

In addition to Etsy software glitching, there are other loopholes that can screw you. I Had a customer request to cancel an order. I canceled and refunded money within minutes. A few days later I noticed there was a message about the cancel request in my mail. Not a message from the customer, but a message from Etsy about the cancellation request. I thought great the Message response rate nonsense, so I responded with a short message saying the order was cancelled and yup, the stupid auto first time reaching out thing popped up. Another hit against my response rate when I did in fact respond to the issue immediately. 

Sometimes to trigger the response rate approval I have to respond to messages with multiple random punctuations, like a few periods or something that will appear to the customer as a typo, because there isn't anything left to say!!!

FIX IT ETSY!!!

[JDTotesnDolls]

For one of them, you need to respond to the message in Messages that you are going to get the refund set up.  Either that or spam.  The order message is not conntected to Messages.  They are separate.

Did you see in the back and forth that the messages were in the same thread?  Only the first one counts unless the buyer starts a new thread.

What device are you using?  And ISP?  Sometimes these things can interfere with messages.  

You only need to respond to first messages.  Doesn't matter about later messages in the same thread.  You don't need to have the last say.

Have you checked your messages CSV?  That might give some clues as to what may be happening,