Star Seller Status: There are still thread issues

[EuropeanVintageHome]

To my surprise I am set to loose my Star Seller status next month because I answered a customer on the wrong thread. And this despite the fact that the "thread issue" was supposed to be taken care of in the Star Seller improvements. My customer sent two mails: one to me and an official demand for assistance. I answered the first one within the required 24 hours, we found a solution, the customer is happy but I still loose my star status because I did not answer the customer through the "right" assistance mail.   

Etsy customer service can of course see this but is not capable to correct the situation manually. When technical issues take control over common sense there is a BIG problem! This issue needs to be addressed!   

[JJewellerySuppliesUK]

Requests for assistance do not get attached to regular convos.  You have to answer every single one you receive as the bots don't know which one is which just that there is an  unanswered message.  At least you know going forward now. 

[CraftyCornishMaids]

Etsy makes sure anything that comes through "purchase and reviews" is a different thread, as those are the ones that count towards the 48 hours, or they can open a case,

This is working the way it should,

Any you need to answer is also highlighted in BLUE so you don't miss it

It is like this deliberately, there is nothing to be fixed

[BagmakerSupply · Accepted solution]

@EuropeanVintageHome: Probably everyone in this forum can sympathize with you but a quick search would show you innumerable threads about the exact same issue in this forum.

The Star Seller metric is that the FIRST message of a NEW thread must be replied to within 24 hours. It does not matter who sent it, the subject matter, if it is a duplicate or blank or anything else. If it is SPAM then it should be marked as such. Those have always been the rules. Subsequent messages from the same account (a buyer may have multiple accounts) are supposed to be combined into a single thread. Etsy is now putting a blue text warning / advisory on those messages they consider to be a "new message" but should semantically be called a "new thread".H

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.

Cancellation requests must be replied to in the actual message - replies using the cancellation form do not count as a response.

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. Note that subsequent messages from that account may go directly to the SPAM folder.

If you have not yet done so, you might want to read https://help.etsy.com/hc/en-us/articles/4403058372503-How-to-Become-a-Star-Seller?segment=selling

[Adorabilities]

There is no right or wrong thread to answer. You needed to answer both, because they were both new threads.