Is Response Rate really accurate?

[ceilingeyes]

I doubt it.

 

Im normally a Level 2 Seller, and on occasion ive been temporarily dropped down to Level 1, and every time its solely because of response rate. I always thought it was annoying but never something too difficult to get back up again and get promoted again the following month.

 

When I first enquired about this to the site I was told they want you to respond to new messages within an hour. I thought that was quite annoying and difficult as most of my clients are from the other side of the planet and tend to message me in the middle of the night (to me) when im asleep.

 

However now im seeing that they say they judge only if you respond within the first 24 hours or not, of a NEW BUYER only.

 

Now Ive gone back through my inbox for the last 90 days and I absolutely know without a shadow of a doubt that Ive responded to every single message, new buyer or not, wihtin 24 hours.

 

So......why has my RR dropped to 75%?

[uk1000]

You could contact customer support about it and let them know and show them the proof if you have.

It might also have been because of messages marked as spam (some users had it say those wouldn't affect their response rate but it did if they weren't replied to).

[ceilingeyes]

UPDATE:

 

I have since passed this to Customer Support who initially gave me a copy and paste answer, so I pressed them into looking into it and they confirmed that my rating had dropped due to a conversation with a regular buyer. When I stated that their own site says that the Response Rate should only take into account replying to the very first message from a new buyer, not existing and ongoing conversations, they admitted the mistake and rectified it and my RR is back up to 100%.

 

So for any of you whose RR drops and you know you have definitely always responded within the 24 hours, I'd recommend highlighting this to Customer Support as it seems the RR algorithm is, like a lot of things, far from faultless.

[khadejasarker]

Absolutely accurate