Star seller message stats measured incorrectly

[VibrantHoops]

Hello, my shop stays for message response times are being measured incorrectly. Several times now, I’ve had customers open a help request and then also send a message and it does not merge into one thread. I then need to respond to both threads or it counts against me.

BUT NOW! I’ve got one where the message was sent where the customer requested to cancel the order, I cancelled the order and included a message “order canceled.” 
The message “order canceled” was in the thread for the help request, and yet it knocked my stats down to 88%? It shows the message as a response, one that was responded to in less than 1 hour. This stuff is seriously frustrating to be held against. The system has far too many flaws and unrealistic expectations for small business to uphold. 
while we are on the topic, let’s talk about the unrealized expectations set by Etsy for star seller badges and the negative effects it has.

1. Requiring small businesses, that are often run by a single person, to respond to messages within 24 hours implies that a business owner is not able to set healthy boundaries between work and personal life thereby taking a day off from work to spend it with the family without interruptions. Etsy should either change the policy to 48 hours or allow shops to set individual operating hours that they must then respond within 1 business day. Example: if the shop is closed on weekends, you can still purchase items, but nothing will be shipped and no message answered until Monday. Seems reasonable, right?

2. Auto Responses without vacation mode that can be set to only send when the shop is closed (ie- sends 6pm-9am and weekends).

3. Get better at giving sellers a way to contest bad reviews and contact support. It’s asinine that sellers have to post their issues on a public forum to get help, but buyers can click a plethora of places per page. Doesn’t etsy realize that buyers would have nothing to buy, we’re it not for the sellers?

There’s plenty of support for buyers when things go wrong, but where can a seller report a buyer for going out of bounds or for reviewing us for things beyond our control? I’ve reported several reviews where the buyer has left a bad review for USPS damaging or delaying the package and been denied.
Not only do I not have time to continue to follow up on this nonsense, but it causes a great deal of unnecessary stress as well as costs me sales due to the Etsy algorithms ghosting listings after a bad review, or rewarding star sellers with priority placement. 
the process of rewarding star sellers for priority placement is pretty dumb in the first place. It’s just extra clutter on the website. The reviews process was supposed to have already served that purpose naturally. 
it’s just like how that auto insurance companies can’t legally hold an at-fault accident against you after three years, but they give you a “discount” if you’re accident free for five years. It’s a way around things in a shady way. 
just do away with it.

[PriddeyThings]

You can set auto response for 5 days at a time if you wish. There is no expectation that you work weekends if that isn’t what works for you.

[audreytherese]

1. Set up auto response
2. There is a new feature in auto response where you can set it up for certain times and days. What you're asking for was released maybe a month or two ago. 

[CraftyCornishMaids]

@VibrantHoops 

you have to reply to EACH new message thread, they are highlighted in blue, so you can't miss them,

The reason "help requests" are separated out, is that is the one that starts the 48 hours before a case can be opened, they are separate, as they have to be answered, and they are very important.

If you replied on the order itself, it is not a message.

....

for non-vacation auto replies, there are 2 choices,

you can set them up to autoreply for a certain number of hours a day, continuously

or you can set them up to reply 24 hours a day, and you can  set that for 5 days.

....

star sellers do NOT get priority placement

[VibrantHoops]

The response I put in messages when cancelling the customersorder showed up in the message thread, therefore it showed the message as responsedLater, it was counted against me. 
And they can say star sellers don’t get priority placement but that’s like saying that insurance companies don’t accidents within 5 years against you, when they offer discounts to those who don’t instead. Lawyers find a way.

[CraftyCornishMaids]

mine don't, are you sure that was the right one,

regarding counting against you

In the meantime, please know that Etsy understands that Star Seller may not be viable for every shop. Star Seller is not a disciplinary program and sellers will not be penalized for low scores.

[TonsOfPaper · Accepted solution]

Hello @VibrantHoops,

We've double-checked the conversation affecting your Star Seller, and it appears that you've responded to the buyer via order page(normal messaging). Please know that messages from the same buyer will now be consolidated into fewer threads. However, when a buyer reaches out via the Help With Order request, a new thread will be created which needs a response separately(via Help with Order thread). These types of message threads need to be responded to in 24 hours to be counted positively toward your Star Seller score. New threads will now have notification badges showing if a message is a buyer’s first time contacting you, or a new help with an order request. 

For more information about this, you may check out the Message Response rate section in this Help Article.

On the other hand, kindly be assured that we will take note of your feedback that you wanted buyers to see a notification to only use Help with Order request option for urgent matters. We will be sharing it with the team to consider for a future update. Please know that we take comments from the community to heart, and we make many changes to the site based on what we hear.
 

Thank you very much!

[VibrantHoops]

And furthermore, it is pretty annoying that etsy provides prompts for help requests that are to be considered more urgent without a pop up prompting the customer to only use them for certain things and to send another message if more appropriate, clogging the system. Then, when they send the help request, it doesn’t show up in their inbox so they don’t seem to be sure that it is sent. Frequently I get a help request followed by a message (within seconds) saying the same thing, which usually isn’t something appropriate for a help request, but I still need to respond to both or it’s held against me. So then I’m responding in two places to one customer and end up with multiple threads where the customer gets either confused or frustrated. 

[audreytherese]

The customer would have sent you multiple messages to start with, so responding to them in multiple spots is not likely to get them confused or frustrated, at least not any more than they already were when they felt they needed to message you multiple times already. 

You can also just flat out say, 'I have to respond to all initial messages, both in my inbox and help requests, so please see the other thread for my response'. 

[CraftyCornishMaids]

the help request can only be used after they purchase,

if you have other messages that you don't need to respond to, just do a snippet of

"responded in your other message"

the help request is separate, as it is very important, as it is the start of the 48 hour clock for cases to be opened against you

.... are you really getting lots of messages after people have bought things from you????, apart from just a thank you?