Delivery service Evri has been crowned the most hated parcel company in Great Britain, with the highest percentage of dissatisfied customers, according to regulator Ofcom.
Almost half of those who contacted Evri with a problem said they were unhappy with the complaints procedure, a major survey by the watchdog found. Only one in four is satisfied with the system.
Shoppers have turned their backs on major retailers using Evri, formerly called Hermes, to deliver their online orders, Money Mail revealed last month.
Parcel delivery company Yodel came in second, with one in three saying they were unhappy with the process of contacting the company.
Two-thirds of people said they had a problem with at least one delivery in the year to June. The most common complaints were damage to packages, packages left in an inappropriate place and not given enough time to answer the door.
Dissatisfied customers: Nearly half of those who contacted Evri with a problem said they were unhappy with the complaints process
But Ofcom warned there is a wide gap between the quality of parcel companies' customer service.
FedEx, Amazon and DHL scored highly in customer satisfaction. Nearly six in 10 people who used FedEx to receive their packages and contacted the company said they were satisfied, while only 16 percent expressed concerns.
If someone buys a product online and the package is damaged or does not arrive, they may be able to seek redress from the online seller under consumer law.
The sender can then seek redress from the parcel service and sometimes a recipient must contact the parcel service.
Since April, operators have been forced to improve their complaint handling processes, under strict new guidelines from Ofcom.
Companies were told to improve the information on their websites, phone lines and live chats and introduce an option to request an email or a callback.
This was because research showed that less than half of the recipients who contact the parcel company are satisfied with the contact process, the handling of their complaint and the resolution of their problem.
But last month Citizen's Advice revealed that Evri and Yodel were at the bottom of its annual package list.
Both operators received only two out of five stars, based on customer service, delivery issues, accessibility and trust.
Amazon Logistics and Royal Mail topped the list with scores of 2.75, but none of the big five parcel companies scored higher than this.
A spokesperson for Evri said: 'These findings do not reflect the significant improvements we have made this year with more than £40 million invested in recruiting more couriers and introducing easier ways to contact us, including a new telephone line for customer service, along with doubling the number of couriers. the number of our customer service advisors.
'Winning new residential customers and the confidence the Post Office has shown in working with us to sell our services underlines the high level of service we provide, delivering over 99 percent of the 720 million parcels we process annually on time.
“Our couriers have received over three million five-star ratings on TrustPilot and customers using our proprietary app rate our couriers 4.67 out of 5.”