I understand your point, but still disagree.
I don't think this should matter. Sure, we receive tickets for simple issues that a customer should be able to do themselves, tickets that don't even make sense, and tickets for request that are outside of the scope of our support. Even in these cases, it should not take hours to respond to a ticket.
Sometimes things happen and fall through the cracks, but this should be rare. If a host takes hours to respond to a normal ticket, I would not wait around to see if their support is better once the site goes offline.
Even if their TOS only guarantees a response within several hours, you cannot accuse them of failing to provide the services they are supposed to, but from a industry standard perspective, I would still consider this sub-par.
Just my opinion. Maybe I just take quality support too seriously.
And no, I'm not just trying to get more business for myself. I just don't like seeing people put up with poor service and support when there are so many other better options out there.
@Hostlumina,
@ElixantTechnology, @MightWeb and others provide great services which far exceed that of the big name providers that seem to care more about their bottom line.