Quite an interesting turn on this thread lol. I do wonder if you would be happy to pay £40-£50 more on the product to get that five star customer service and an instant response? A lot of small business can't afford to have someone man a computer 24/7 to reply to online queries and if they did you would pay more for your goods! That's the way I always look at it. In an ideal world yes they would have someone but this is far from an ideal world.
For me, if I'm getting the product for cheaper than anywhere else can supply it me for then I'm quite happy to overlook a slight delay in correspondence. A lot of the 'thank you for your order' e-mails are pretty much auto generated these days anyway and just spammed to the address you gave when you placed the order once your card details have been accepted. I remember once I had my phone repaired by Carphone warehouse, the closest one to me is about 20miles as I live out in the sticks. I got an e-mail and text message to the loan phone they'd given me saying my phone was ready to collect. So I drove over to collect it... Only it wasn't there, that e-mail and text was generated once the phone had left their central repair center and NOT when it was actually back in the store. Livid was an understatement lol. Actually managed to blag £15 out of them to cover fuel which was something I suppose.