You know Justin, I think you may have something here. We're brand new hosts, I happen to not be working right now, so I have been able to reply to every one inquiry and booking request within 10 minutes or less. (Not something I'll be able to keep up.) Initially, my Response Rate was 100 percent, and it actually said, "Within an hour." However, for the past two days my Response Rate is 90 percent! And I STILL am responding, replying, etc. to all of the inquiries and requests within an hour. I can't figure out where the 90 percent came from??
Now, I'm wondering if we need to keep a parlay up - as you suggest. When a Guest or someone inquiring writes "Thank you," then I must write back, "You're welcome." That's actually pretty asinine, but your explanation makes total sense when I've been devoted to nothing but responding to folks on Airbnb for a week. I actually do get an email from Airbnb when someone writes, "Thanks," that says, "You can reply directly to ___ by replying to this message." Like you, I think that this is an expecation of Airbnb!!
Can anyone out there confirm whether this is what Airbnb is measuring in our Response Time?