In a nutshell - I think what everyone has witnessed here is the growing pains of a small business.
I've worked for a medium sized corporation's IT department for 25 years now and seen communications go from inter-office memos, telephones and physically travel to location as the only ways of getting in communication to adding email, instant messaging, SMS (text), video meetings, Webex, social media and several other forms to the mix. Generally email is the mainstay method of communication because it's easily stored and retrieved for future use and convenient to reply back to when there is time and convenience to to so. But if something important needs to be communicated in a high priority fashion you do one of two things: You walk down the hall and talk to the person or you call them on the phone. That's how you prioritize when you need to communicate pronto.
But beyond what's the best way to communicate you're seeing more going on here. You're seeing a small business that's growing and working through the issues that come with success and growing into it. There comes a time when the company's founder just can't run the show alone and struggles to keep up with all aspects of the business (Production, Selling, Purchasing, Accounting, Computer and Phone communications, shipping and on and on). And you have to grow into the success slowly lest you find yourself overstaffed and not enough business to sustain the people it takes to support it.
This brings in the challenges of how does the customer communicate with the growing, yet still small business that is experiencing some levels of success but is only beginning to be able to "staff up" accommodate it. We should all keep this in mind as many of our suppliers in here are in similar situations and we need to give them the benefit of the doubt when we don't hear back from them right away on an order or email or PM etc. And if we really need to talk to them, that's what the good old fashioned telephone is for!.
And for those that claim no home phone any more and just cellphone with iffy service - If you've got a decent Internet connection (broadband of any kind) Magic Jack Plus is a good solution for a home phone over the net for only $20-25 "a year". Even then, with my cellphone on my belt, I don't hear it when I'm in the shop with the lathe running and Shopvac going, so there may still be a delay in responding if we don't get an answer right away when calling. Try again later and if it's really important. The guy on the other end may just be working his way through what we know of as a Good Problem!
ETA: This may have been a discussion that was unnecessay in the forum, but I think we can all learn from it.
.There was poop all over that man's car and the smell!!! just imagine.My other friend says Ohh Ohh