Star Seller system not reflecting my message response time correctly.

[WildLunaInk]

I received an order from a customer. This same customer also sent me a separate message reaching out with a question about their order. I responded quickly to their message when I replied to their order, but I did it by clicking on the message customer link through their order (rather than the additional message thread that was created when the customer contacted me).

However in logging in today, I notice the etsy system was showing that I did not respond to the customer's inquiry. But I DID respond to their inquiry, very quickly might I add. I just did it directly to their order message customer link, so it started a different message thread. 

Will I lose my star seller badge due to the this fault in etsy's system to not be able to see that I messaged this customer through another thread? It was well within 24 hours. 

Anyone know how I can get this discrepancy resolved? I work very hard to maintain my star seller badge and it seems pretty unfair to reduce my response rate when my response rate was actually kept intact. 

Anyone no how to get this resolved?

[bradgoodell]

You can mark the other message as "spam" and your numbers will adjust within 24 hours.

The way Etsy is set up you need to reply to "All NEW messages".  In the future, make sure you respond to the NEW thread, rather than responding through the old thread.  

Good luck.

[PaperPosyCrafts]

This exact same thing happened to me. I was with customer service in the chat and they basically said there’s nothing they could do to help me. That was my fault because I was working with a customer and two different threads. I also got marked off for not responding to a bot message that I got from a purchase I made. They said that my response to messages even as a buyer will count against me

[TBQSC]

Star Seller Page (Info, Questions, Answers)

What messages count towards the message response rate?

Your message response rate is based on just the first message in a conversation, not ongoing conversations. This means you just need to respond to the first message within 24 hours. This applies to messages both from buyer and seller accounts. Messages from Etsy staff do not count toward your response rate, and neither do messages that you mark as spam. You can also now find a breakdown of your message response rate score by downloading a CSV.

[BagmakerSupply]

@WildLunaInk: While the loosely tossed around terminology makes it harder to decipher the rules, it boils down to that the FIRST message of EVERY NEW INCOMING 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.

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"

If the buyer's message did not attach to the order and your reply started a new thread, odds are the buyer's message was a Help Request, which always starts a new thread (because it also starts the clock ticking on a possible claim).

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. There have been reports in this forum, however, that Help Requests cannot be marked as SPAM.