24 hours seems like far too long of a wait. I don't have that much patience. While most companies are trying to reduce costs and push users toward the web and email, GoDaddy makes it easier to call... which is fine. That's not a bad alternative and they clearly set expectations upfront. Where I take issue is with companies that provide an e-mail address on their website and then don't respond for two or three days. Sometimes even longer.
Back to the small business example. I recently had some logo work done. I narrowed down my selection to two small companies. I sent a couple of questions via email to help finalize my choice. The first firm responded almost immediately and we exchanged a few emails over the course on an hour and they won the work. The second company responded three days later. Really? Three days? Did they think that I was still in the market for this need?
The interesting thing is that this isn't the only example of this type of delayed response. If you're going to be out of the office, use an auto responder to let people know. If you are too busy to respond, use and auto responder to let people know that too. I have seen some great auto responses that state things like "I check e-mail twice per day at 10am and 4 pm and I will respond to you then." I have even seen one that says "I only check e-mail on Mondays." I am perfectly fine with these replies. If you are going to stray from my expectation of a fairly immediate reply, let me know so I can call and get what I need.
If you have any questions about this post, please email me and I'll get back to you in a few days.