Star seller Message replies

[Bybella]

I have replied to all messages within 24 hours and my rating for answering messages went down 10 points rather than up. How do I address this issue? My shop is Bybella and I read that the first message is what needs to be replied to in 24 hours. I have many people trying to sell me services and I reply the first time but don't keep replying to their requests and I should not have to. I take great care of my customers and answer all messages within 24 hours and am very frustrated with what is going on with your calculations.

[BagmakerSupply]

@Bybella   You need to reply to the first message of a new thread within 24 hours and Etsy is now putting a warning / advisory on every message that they consider new. Have you looked at the CSV file for the appropriate period to see which messages Etsy considers that you have not replied to? Also keep in mind, that for the August star the time period was May - July and the current progress statistics are for June - August.

[PrimFun]

You need to spam the messages if you are getting repeated new messages trying to sell you services.  Etsy makes no distinction.  All NEW messages must be answered or spammed.

The information is outline under the Star seller program.  Worth a read.

[SaltyDaysDecor]

A few months ago Etsy stripped me of my Star Seller badge, claiming I neglected to respond to a message, which I really did respond to--in 20 minutes. I took a screen shot of the disputed thread, sent to Etsy, and they agreed that I did indeed respond, but said they cannot fix it by hand. Sorry.

It took three months to restore my badge. But in reality, the badge seems to not play a significant role in generating sales.

Hang in there.

[TonsOfPaper · Accepted solution]

Hello there,

Please know that your response rate shows the percentage of initial messages that you reply to within 24 hours in your current 3-month evaluation period—just the first message, not ongoing conversations. This includes when a buyer reaches out multiple times in different threads, or if another seller messages you. Any initial message counts towards your response rate.

Your response rate does not include messages marked as spam, and marking a message unread doesn’t count that message as “new” again (and doesn’t restart the clock). Response rate is captured for any message received 7 days a week (including weekends & holidays).

We recommend downloading the CSV file of your Message Response rate to get a closer look at the messages. You can do this by going to your Shop Manager dashboard > Star Seller dashboard page > selecting the Message response rate tile > selecting the Export link next to the Message breakdown.

Thank you very much!

[DesertChains]

This question has been answered already. I’m not going to repeat what others have said, both in this thread and in nearly countless prior threads.

[CarpetCollectionAU]

@TonsOfPaper Since you seem to be available today could you please advise if the task of marking as "Spam" has the same 24 hour time limit as replying to all other first messages from Buyers and Sellers OR if messages can be marked as "Spam" after the normal 24 hours and still be removed from the Message calculation?

[SunnytyDE]

@CarpetCollectionAU  I see you keep trying to get an answer and I would really like to have a clear answer on that question too. 
I used to tell people coming to the forum to mark older messages as spam but I don’t anymore because I really don’t like the fact of the work around to bad customer service where you can just clean up your inbox at the end of the month by putting everything you didn’t  feel like answering to spam and still get the badge. 
@TonsOfPaper it would be great to get a clear answer about answering or spamming a message within 24 hours. Everything else just doesn’t make sense. 

[CarpetCollectionAU]

@SunnytyDE Thank-you for your supportive comment and understanding of my concern

Yes! I am trying to get a definitive answer to this question.

It still appears to be the case that "Spam" can be responded to as "Spam" any time in the Month, even if the "Spam" was not really "Spam".

Clearing up a Message In-Box, just because a Message or two was missed, by marking as "Spam" seems to work.

I would really like to see anything which is "Spammed" have to comply with the same 24 Hour Timeframe as all other Messages.

And I would like someone from Etsy to address this issue.

@TonsOfPaper Am I asking too much?

[SunnytyDE]

@CarpetCollectionAU @TonsOfPaper  maybe you could tag me when an answer is available. 
I would also like to see the 24 hour rule for spam because otherwise what is the point of even including the message metric? 

[CarpetCollectionAU]

Absolutely. @TonsOfPaper please respond or pass along "up the chain" to someone who is authorised and intelligent enough to understand the question.

We just need to know if the 24 Hour Rule applies to "Spam"

And, if the 24 Hour Rule does not apply to "Spam", could you please explain why this is so?

Because, as it stands, "Spam" is a "Get Out Of Jail Free" card for anyone who misses a Message and wants to correct their own error.

This is patently disadvantaging all the Sellers who actually abide by the SSP rules in every respect.

Just including @thatregina in this thread as Regina usually understands most questions / issues

[CarpetCollectionAU]

Opps  That was supposed to be @thatregina 

[thatregina · Accepted solution]

@SunnytyDE @CarpetCollectionAU Hi folks, a seller can mark a new message as spam after 24 hours and it will still be removed from (or not count towards) their response rate score. Please keep in mind that this will not retroactively give a seller the badge. I hope that answers your query!

[SunnytyDE]

@thatregina  Thank you for clarifying. I still like to give my two cents that this makes the metric for messages useless if you want to measure good customer service. Any shop with horrible customer service can mark any message as spam that they didn’t bother replying to  before the month is up and still receive the badge for messages. This really doesn’t make any sense to me. It’s this attitude of let’s take 3 weeks off and not bother to reply to questions from customers because we will still get the badge if we spam them all on the 30th. 

[thatregina]

@SunnytyDE I appreciate your feedback, and will share it with the team. Thanks!

[CarpetCollectionAU]

@thatregina Thank-you for your response to our question. Apologies for not responding sooner.

I would just like to support @SunnytyDE 's concerns about the potential  for abuse of the SSP Messaging Metric. It is ueful to be able to use the "Spam" function to remove mesages that are truely "Spam" and need no response. But surely, in the interests of fairness and equity, the "Spam" response should also be completed within the 24 hour timeframe which is applicable to all other messages?

As there is no monitoring of the messages marked as "Spam", it is clearly evident that this function can, and is, being used to also get rid of Messages which have been missed / overlooked during the Month.

If you look at any of the multitude of SSP Threads in Forums, you will see that many people are being advised to "Mark as "Spam"" duplicate Messages, Thank-you messages, Confirmation of Order Messages (as a Buyer) and 2nd / subsequent Messages from the same person which start in a new Thread etc.

The "bundling" of messages has not really done anything to fix these issues. In fact, "bundling" is actually creating issues as some Messsages are now being missed because they are attaching to a previous Message relating to a completely different Order which can be, in some cases, 2-3 years old.

I am sure all of us who actually abide by the SSP Messaging rules would appreciate you bringing these issues / problems to the attention of the SSP Team, particularly the 24 hour "Spam" problem. 

[BagmakerSupply]

Would like to second @CarpetCollectionAU  comments. Not only has bundling of messages into a single thread caused all sorts of problems for those of us who do answer customer messages and introduced new complications https://community.etsy.com/t5/Technical-Issues/Issue-With-Multiple-quot-New-quot-Messages-In-An-Old-... but the SS program no longer measures if a seller is responsive to customer messages, only if they reply to or spam the customers FIRST message. A seller could ignore every subsequent inquiry from a customer and according to the new metric they are still a Star Seller.

[BagmakerSupply]

Our best guess is that marking a message as SPAM after 24 hours and that action "fixing" the response percentage is not intentional but just something else that may not work as intended and one day some Etsy programmer may correct the action. The safest course is to handle the message within the 24 hour window and reply or mark it as SPAM.

And just to clarify so people don't think they have to respond to every message and it will be a never ending loop: 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. Etsy is now putting a blue text warning / advisory on those messages they consider to be a "new message". And even if you already have a thread with an account Help Requests spawn a new thread.