ap33world.com

Long Term Review - 3yrs with GLS Ireland

This review reflects my personal experience with GLS Ireland over the past three years. During that time, I received between 30 and 40 parcels via GLS. The only positive thing I can say is that every parcel did eventually arrive - eventually being the key word here.Because of my job, I move to a different country every 3–5 years. So I can compare not just different courier companies, but also how their regional branches perform. Granted, in none of the countries I’ve lived in has GLS been considered a premium service like UPS or FedEx. And yes, service quality in Ireland is generally 50–80% lower than in places like Germany or the Netherlands.But GLS Ireland is, by far, the absolute bottom of the barrel.1. Handling of GoodsMany parcels simply aren’t built to survive, say, being dropped out of an airplane. Unfortunately, that seems to be the baseline stress test at GLS. The level of indifference with which they handle their work matches the level of responsibility shown by everyone along their logistics chain. In my experience, around 80% of all shipments arrived damaged for no good reason.Rating: 2 out of 10.2. TimelinessGLS publishes standard delivery times for national and international shipments. The moment GLS Ireland takes over, you might as well double those times to get a realistic estimate of when your parcel will actually show up.Rating: 0 out of 10.3. Customer SupportTechnically, GLS Ireland is reachable by phone and email. In practice? Before Christmas, for example, you can easily spend a full hour in the phone queue. When someone finally answers, they’re usually friendly but consistently clueless, armed with pre-scripted corporate nonsense that ends with something like, “You can file a written complaint and request a refund.”Email support isn’t any better. It can take a week just to get a reply, and that reply will be just as useless - because nothing you say has any impact on the process anyway.Honestly, GLS could save money by replacing the staff with AI agents. They wouldn’t be any more competent, but at least they wouldn’t force customers to suffer through outrageous wait times -and they’d scale automatically during Christmas, which, to GLS Ireland, seems to come as a complete surprise every single year.Rating: -2 out of 10All in all, GLS Ireland is the prime example of why this entire industry needs regulation. Much like banks, courier companies handle things of real value for their customers. Proper regulation would force the management of operations like this to follow basic standards - or sweep them off the market entirely, which in the case of GLS Ireland might actually be the preferable outcome.

Date of experience: Dec 01, 2025