Star Seller Status Incorrectly Removed

[DearWild]

We just had our shop's star seller status removed because it flagged one message as not having been responded to within 24hrs, however this is incorrect.  We received a message from a customer, requesting to cancel an order, through the "Help with Order" function.  We immediately canceled the order and through the cancel function, we entered a note in the comments field to let the customer know we had taken care of their request.  This showed up as a new message thread on our dashboard and the customer responded within that new thread.  Our response time was well within the allotted 24 hr period, however the platform has removed our star seller status for June, as it didn't recognize our response since it was  sent in a new thread by the platform.  

This is extremely frustrating as we have followed all the requirements to reach star seller status and this will likely impact our sales for this month.   This functionality should be addressed, so the tech recognizes ALL messages that are sent to customers, regardless of which platform function it originates from.   

[mommawhazelsquilts]

Not incorrectly removed.  You needed to respond to that help with order message.  Sending a message with the refund does not qualify as replying to that other message.

[BagmakerSupply]

@DearWild: Not arguing with your logic, but cancellation requests in a new thread must be replied to in the actual message - replies using the cancellation form do not count as a response.

Etsy is now putting a blue text warning / advisory (blue banner on desktop, and a blue dot on mobile) on those messages they consider to be a "new message" but should semantically be called a "new thread".

Help Requests always start a new thread.

If you are creating a custom listing based on a new thread, you still need to reply to the message.

If the unanswered message is not a Help Request, at least for the time being, it appears that marking an unanswered message as SPAM (even after the 24 hour deadline has passed) will cause your reply percentage to change in a day or two if the original message was within the current star seller period (but not retroactively). Note that subsequent messages from that account may go directly to the SPAM folder.