FedEx review: International shipping

I was shipping some personal family documents to Germany last week, January 3rd, 2024. I chose FedEx International Priority Express using one of FedEx's Mailing Paks. I paid the extra money for it to get to it's german destination by Friday Jan. 5th by 12 pm. (per FedEx). I generated all the shipping labels and customs forms per FedEx app. I put I the information that these were personal documents, no exchange of goods etc. per the app. I had been previously told that it would be best to have an indirect signature requested since it was going to a german government agency, with no specific person to receive this package (a little over 2 pounds for the documents). I took it to a FedEx shipping office in our local Walmart, instead of just dropping it of at closer drop off locations. It went out and got to Cologne, Germany by Thursday, Jan 4th and went to customs. Then while following up on tracking on Friday Jan 5th, I saw that it was listed as "Clearance Delay" and listed "Clearance instructions from the importer are required". Nothing else, and no notification via email or texts, even though I requested status notifications via app and online. I got online and tried to find out what was going on and if there was anything I could do to remedy the situation. I had to deal with their autobot customer service with no luck or direction. It took me forever to get the telephone number from the customer service chat. When I did get a live person during the daytime, they couldn't help, so they transferred me to their international customer service line. When I spoke to them finally on Jan. 8th, all they said was that it's a normal delay and it is being taken care of. I had to read them the notice I was receiving from their app to explain it stated that the importer needs to send clearance information and that it didn't look like fedex was fixing the problem. Then all they could do is take down my email and phone number information, so that they could pass it on to their fedex rep in germany and they would get right back to me. Here we are 24 hours later and not a word from FedEx. Tracking still shows "clearance delay Jan. 4th 9:27 pm." I understand that customs can hold up delivery, but you would think that FedEx would let you know what they are doing to facilitate clearance, or at least contact the sender (customer) what could be done. It is only a shipment of paper documents that I couldn't send as usual mail because it was over the 1 lb. limit of a standard mailer. It cost me over $168 dollars to send documents to Germany from Dallas using all the FedEx shipping labels and customs forms. Paying over $20 extra to get it there last Friday, instead of Wed. Jan 10th (which was the next option given by FedEx). No updates 5 days later since the last note posted Jan. 4th. I would think that a company that has shipped a lot of things to germany in the past and you pay good money to directly, and not a third party vendor that promises lower FedEx rates, would be handling the matter for it's customer, or at the very least keeping the customer informed of what has to be done. I can't even chose "delivery options" online, because it only allows the receiver to change any delivery options. I had hoped if I changed the "indirect signature request" to no signature needed, it might then get delivered to it's address. Nothing seems to being worked on. I have filled in their online forms to customer service with details, but have also never heard back. Not sure if FedEx has their act together. Would doubt I would ever use or recommend their services again.