My messaging rate is 67% and room for improvement

[Flavorsmack]

I don't understand what is going on.  I am a 1 year old shop, and I only have about 350 listings and 80 sales.  I enter all POD orders manually because I am new and want to be sure that the few orders I do get, will get fulfilled correctly.  So I'm at 67% response time in the first 24 hours  and 33% after 48 hours?  I mean, at most, I will get an order late at night or overnight and will process it the next day.  I have virtually NO messages/questions from buyers and the ones that did message me, I responded to immediately.  Where is this 33% coming from?  I even send a message to every buyer thanking them for their order and to let them know I processed it.  Is the 33% something else I am not doing?  95% of my orders have no questions or issues or custom requests.  Can someone tell me if this is an Etsy issue or something I am doing wrong?

[LaLoreley]

I came here to ask this exact same question because I have the same issue as you do. Also, I noticed this morning that the little blue message alerting me of a new message from a potential new buyer doesn’t go away even after I replied within the first hour and we’ve exchanged a few messages already. Could this be a technical bug? 

[XpressiveMpressions]

Same with the blue message about potential new customer response not going away after immediately responding and customer even ordering!

Started a couple of days ago...

[Adorabilities]

Message rate is only about messages that you have received, and whether you answered them within 24 hours.
It has nothing to do with processing orders.

Look at the CSV to see what message(s) they think you answered late. It could be as simple as you answered one message late out of 3 total messages.

[Flavorsmack]

Ok - had to look for the CSV but found it.  This was a buyer that had multiple messages saying the same thing and I kept to one chain.  That's too bad that I miss out on the star seller because of 1 message.  She sent one at 10:40 that I responded to and a duplicate one at 10:43.  Is this something I can have Etsy fix or no?

[BagmakerSupply]

@Flavorsmack: "Is this something I can have Etsy fix or no?" Unfortunately no. As it says right on your Star Seller page and elsewehere, you need to reply to (or mark as SPAM) the FIRST message of EVERY NEW INCOMING THREAD within 24 hours. It does not matter who sent it, the subject matter, if it is a duplicate or blank or anything else.

[BootifulLabels]

@Flavorsmack 

If a buyer sends you more than one thread on the same topic, you either need to either answer them all within 24hrs, or answer on one and send the others to spam.  The only problem with the second option is that there is a chance that messages from that buyer will be blocked in the future, not an ideal situation.  It only takes a few seconds to send a quick response to each duplicate message just saying "Answered in your other message".  Then stick to the one thread and ask the buyer to do the same.

Etsy will not fix it, they don't see it as their problem. 

[BoudoirPrive]

I should have qualified for the Star Seller badge in my other Etsy shop, but won't now because Etsy says I did not respond to a message within 24 hours, which is incorrect.  I had two messages from my very best client whilst I was on vacation (1 hour time difference between UK and Corsica) and I answered both in a timely manner, but Etsy says I did not answer at all and has awarded me 90% for messages and 95% is required to attain Star Seller rating.  I can clearly see the replies in my messages section.  Etsy needs to ensure that their stats are correct before penalising people in this way.

[BagmakerSupply]

@Flavorsmack: "Where is this 33% coming from?" First, you need to check the applicable CSV file available on your Star Seller page to confirm which message(s) Etsy thinks were answered late or not answered at all. When you look at the file remember that that the dates / times are in UTC (not your time zone), only the first Message of a new incoming thread is included (all that counts for Star Seller), and usually a new incoming thread is not included until after the 24 hour reply window has passed regardless of when you replied. Star Seller stats (and the CSV file) seem to be updated only once per day so there may be an additional day's delay. There is also a link to the actual Message thread so you can verify if the data is correct or not.

The Star Seller metric for Messages is separate from the metric for completing and shipping orders on time.