I send about 1 parcel a week and if its small i use MyHermes and if its big i use Interparcel which usually contract via citylink.
Both are good to me but my local MyHermes courier is great, he will always collect/drop off parcels to my garage. I also have the guys phone number so if i need a car part earlier on in the day he will drop if off for me
But i had some wine delivered from London by MyHermes for Christmas, it was dispatched on the 5th and only arrived today, 14 days for a 3-5 day service. The system cant cope and they screwed up......but TBH i will still use them. As the good outshines the bad.
I also had a chat with the city link driver last week (when he was collection the exhaust for a member on here), it was 3pm and he still had 92 parcels to deliver.....they weren't offered Christmas bonus (even though they are a lot busier in this peroid) and as an 'incentive' they were offered £100 to work saturday AM for 4 days in november/december. After tax that works out at £20 a day or £4 an hour.
Bit of a joke really!