Last year, DHL received more complaints than ever before. Nevertheless, the company wants to cut 8,000 jobs.
The Federal Network Agency has never received as many postal complaints as it did last year. As the Bonn-based authority announced in response to a request from the dpa news agency, it received 44,406 complaints about deficiencies in the postal service, 2,817 more than in 2023. This corresponds to an increase of almost seven percent. The previous record of 43,125 complaints in 2022 was therefore just exceeded.
The opportunity to criticize relates to the entire postal and parcel industry, although 89% of complaints last year were directed against the market leader DHL and its mail division Deutsche Post.
Most of the complaints are about deficiencies in delivery, but also about other issues such as branches where consumers were faced with locked doors even during their actual opening hours, or letterboxes that are emptied less frequently than before. Frustration is also caused by allegedly failed delivery attempts, even though the recipient was waiting at home and the doorbell worked fine - this raises the question of whether the parcel carrier made a serious attempt at all.
DHL: low proportion of complaints
The DHL postal group says that the number of complaints relating to it is low in relation to the 12.2 billion letters and 1.8 billion parcels that were delivered last year. However, a company spokesperson emphasizes that every complaint is one too many. "We work every day to improve our quality and minimize the number of complaints," said the spokesperson.
According to the statistics, only 0.0003 percent of shipments result in a complaint to the Federal Network Agency. However, you can also complain directly to DHL. The company does not reveal how many critical reports have reached the company directly.
In addition, there is a number of unreported delivery errors that have led to frustration among recipients but have not prompted them to make a complaint. Ultimately, the number of complaints from the Federal Network Agency is just an indicator that something could be amiss in the industry, which is under great time and cost pressure.
Swiss Post justifies problems with staff shortages
If there are an increasing number of critical reports in a region, the Federal Network Agency initiates what are known as "cause-based investigations" due to non-delivery or inadequate letter delivery. According to the Bonn-based authority, there was a relatively high level of dissatisfaction in Bochum in October 2024, for example, where Swiss Post justified its delivery problems with staff shortages and organizational bottlenecks. Swiss Post responded there by hiring new staff and substitutes. In January 2025, the delivery situation had stabilized, according to the Federal Network Agency.
There were similar delivery deficits last year in Stuhr (Lower Saxony), Erlensee (Hesse), Hamburg, Freudenstadt (Baden-Württemberg), Planegg (Bavaria) and Neuenhagen (Brandenburg). It was not only staff shortages that played a role, but also bad weather and unusually high shipment volumes.
In general, Deutsche Post is struggling with the decline in the mail business. On March 6, 2025, the company announced its intention to cut 8,000 jobs in Germany by the end of the year. The Danish postal service provider Postnord even announced its intention to completely discontinue letter delivery by the end of 2025.
https://www.ecoreporter.de/artikel/dhl-group-rekordzahl-an-beschwerden-im-post-gesch%C3%A4ft/
