Deal with any of the couriers long enough, and you'll probably end up with a long list of grievances. None of them are perfect, and almost all of them boil down to the individual drivers or the depot staff. Incompetent drivers do get fired, but it often takes a couple of months of terrible service before the company gets to the point of being able to sack a driver.
For example, a few years ago I had a problem with Citylink, who many businesses swear by, but after staying home all day for a delivery and them not turning up, I had to call them to find out what was going on. The driver claimed to have waited 4 minutes at the door, and then left a note, yet there was no note. Same happened next day, and the day after, in the end, on the 4th day of scheduled delivery, the manager at the depot drove out with the parcel personally, and then told me that he was p'ed off with the driver who was now on a written warning.
Another example, 2 weeks ago I ordered something on a friday afternoon, now the delivery options were £5.99 for next day, £5.99 for 2-3 day, or £9.99 for saturday delivery. Not needing the item that much I chose 'next day', I knew that it wouldn't be saturday, but at least it would be guarenteed for monday, and there was no price difference. Yodel turned up and delivered it on Sunday.
Or the problem I had 10 years ago in the US, where UPS managed to 'lose' not only a $3000 telescope, but it's replacement as well. When they finally showed up with it, I got 'well, it's on the run-up to christmas, and a lot of our depot staff get light fingers at this time of year', so matter of factly. They also managed to 'lose' a $2500 custom built tripod, that had a 6 month lead time, now THAT was annoying.
Do I avoid these companies? No, not really, there's no point, if I avoided every delivery company that messed up, I'd not have any options, even parcel force have had packages lost/stolen more than a few times for me.