Blog homeAnyone heard of TET.org? They produce standards for travel businesses [US]:
Here they are (details from the TET website)
Code 1: A TET seal holder shall never use deceptive practices and shall be guided by: truth, accuracy, honesty, fairness and integrity in its activities.
- A TET seal holder shall obey all laws and regulations and shall avoid any conduct or activity which would cause unjust harm to others.
- A TET seal holder shall not engage in any act or omission of a dishonest, deceitful or fraudulent nature in the conduct of business activities.
- A TET seal holder shall conduct its/his/her dealings in a civil, courteous and professional manner.
Code 2: A TET seal holder shall exercise truth, honesty, integrity and fair dealings with customers.
- A TET seal holder shall provide complete, accurate and informative materials, agreements, documents, information (print, electronic media, television, radio or otherwise) to its customers and/or to consumers. Informative materials, agreements, documents, information (print, electronic media, television, radio or otherwise) produced and/or utilized by a TET seal holder shall not contain false, misleading or incomplete information.
- When a TET seal holder utilizes marketing materials and agreements with its customers (print, electronic media, television, radio or otherwise), it shall contain sufficient information to enable the customer to make an informed purchasing decision and which are clear and understandable.
- A TET seal holder provide communications and information to its customers in a prompt and timely manner.
Code 3: A TET seal holder’s relationship with its customers.
- A TET seal holder will promptly respond to any customer complaints.
- A TET seal holder will issue agreed upon refunds in a timely manner.
- A TET seal holder will treat every client transaction confidentially and not disclose any information without permission of the customer, unless required by law.
- A TET seal holder agrees to work diligently to fairly resolve any complaint or dispute with a customer.
I don’t know what to think of these standards. They look pretty sensible to me - but I have never seen a travel website with a TET logo. Anyone know of one?
Let me see if I can do a followup with the TET organisation. What questions do you have about these standards? Do you think that putting a badge on your website helps convince consumers that your site is better managed?
More information from the TET website
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Just had an email from TET about their seal. They do have quite a few travel companies signed up actually - so looks solid.
Still not convinced that this will help reassure potential customers prior to making a booking - but it may help customers not entirely satisfied with an aspect of product delivery (i.e. holiday, trip or stay) should they come to make a complaint.
Their format is very similar to the Better Business Bureau. The company has to agree to the BBB’s arbitration standards should a complaint arise and they must follow the Code of Ethics. The concept behind the TET looks good but the execution is weak. The site looks very dated and amateurish. I’m not sure if today’s sophisticated web consumer is going to hold much faith in the brand. There are others like http://www.traveltrust.co.uk/ or http://www.ossn.com for independent agents that appear to be more established.
The primary purpose of Trust Earned Travel (www.tet.org) is to convince someone visiting a travel web site for the first time that the business can be trusted. Travelers need that outside assurance that the company they found on the Internet has some substance. Trust Earned Travel provides that service for free to both the Sealholder travel service and the consumer.
If you explore the site in depth, www.tet,org, and then the two mentioned by Stephen, you will find that we have a completely different approach than those sites mentioned in Stephen’s comments.
As to Stephen’s comment that our site is “looks very dated and amateurish”, we update www.tet.org daily and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Certainly our site gets the job done.
Hi Jeff,
I have to say that I agree with Stephen. Your site’s design, while sufficient on a Business to Business website, doesn’t hold the credibility that a consumer would expect from a system that aims to improve trust. Yes design is only “skin deep” and what we are talking about is only the superficial layer of your site - but that is the world we all live in.
If you spent a little money asking a designer to freshen up your site - you would probably find that many more travel companies would be prepared to take your logo. I suggest that you also list in a prominent place how many travel companies are using your seal currently - and also numbers of complaints that have been forwarded to your organisation and their outcome.
I would take his advice in the spirit it was intended - i.e. helpful input - and look to improve your site based on this feedback.
From a tour operator’s perspective, I’ve got to agree with the points about the weak design. The site looks too simple and amateurish to inspire a lot of confidence. The block colours, simple black text on white background feel too basic and the rhs sections felt like ads or an affiliate type website at first.
Also, I can’t see anywhere that says the companies are actually vetted in any way. It just looks too easy to mean much - I just agree to a pledge and get a logo - that seems far too easy, and almost suggests that I put the logo on because it was easy to get and I didn’t have to jump through proper hoops to get a more recognised/official one.
When I’m looking to prove our our users that we run our business properly, I want logos that the public will recognise, and if they don’t recognise them, ones that they can follow through on and see that we had to actually do something to obtain it. We display TTA & ATOL to prove our bonding & financial protection, ICRA to prove safe & clean content, and dot Travel (which we needed proper bonding to obtain and wanted to support, but may go soon due to our disappointment with the whole dot travel system, but that’s another story).
It says in the FAQ that it is a recognised program - any info on who it is recognised by, which travel associations/bodies do recognise/approve/recommend it, would be useful. I’d also like to see a list or directory of companies with the logo on there, rather than just finding them by search.
As an operator who likes to think they run their business responsibly, I’m all in favour of ways of ways of proving this online, as it helps us compete with bigger companies and reassure our users & customers before they book with us. So, good luck with TET - I just think it needs some more work before we’d consider it. Whether this is feasible time-wise for the philanthropist without charging any fees at all I don’t know.
I haven’t come across anything like TET in the UK, and for travel companies that do not fit within the travel association mould I could see it working, providing that the travel company really did meet the strict standards, and that this wasn’t just a way of generating revenue by charging companies to join a membership.
What evidence is there that the company actually does meet these standards?
As a consumer do I trust TET to administrate this standards, i.e. is their an audit etc.?
Are they an approved third-party or travel association?
Some of the standards appear to be a little flakey to me, for example how do you know that the company will issue agreed upon refunds in a timely manner. If I was a travel company I could say yes we do, but where’s the proof, what checks were carried out?
As for the site design I would have to say that it is awful, very 1990s, I am no web designer myself so I shouldn’t be so critical but I am a consumer and if saw a logo directing me to your site, it would not inspire any type of trust in the company or more importantly, TET.
Regarding Darren’s comments about the standards “appear to be a little flakey to me”. There is a saying “fool me once, shame on you..fool me twice, shame on me.” When TET gets a complaint about services provided by a Seal Holder and we do not get confirmation from the party complaining that it was resolved to their satisfaction, the travel service provider’s file is noted as having had an unresolved dispute. So a Seal Holder may foot the public once but there is fair warning to the traveling public about that fact as a result of our services.
Anyone can come to TET.org and look up a travel service provider and if they are in our Seal Holder the fact that there was an unresolved dispute will give fair warning to the traveler to possibly stay clear of that business.
If the travel service provider is not a seal holder well, then, the traveler can do a search of the area they are going and look for Seal Holders because the fact that the travel service provider has agreed to the TET Pledge says a lot about their integrity.
The other companies Stephen mentioned appear to me to charge for being a member - we are FREE and is a service to the traveling community - traveler and business. If Darren and Stephen and/or other bloggers would like to chip in to help us pay for a new design, to make it “post 90’s” - it is welcome. We will even give an acknowledgement to Darren & Stephen for their significant contributions. The philanthropist that is funding this operation believes in spending money carefully and the functionality of the site works well - we serve the traveling public with travel articles, travel facts, Seal Holder status reports and continue to add many travel service providers as Seal Holders every day.
Here is to working towards better, safer, more convenient and more enjoyable traveling for all.
I’d imagine all agree those are commendable aims.
Not wanting to labour the design point however I’d imagine it’s currently affecting the perceived legitimacy of the site, a few quick tweaks wouldn’t be too expensive. As an example the items really dating the site are the 3D border effect around the main content, the capital letters on the main navigation and the animated banner along the top. Also the right hand column at first glance looks extremely similar to a lot of “Google Adsense” type adverts.
As a result of some constructive comments by participants on this blog, we got authorization to tweak the skin. Modified the logo - eliminated the adsense type of column on the right side - changed the header imagery. I will say that we have been extremely happy with the volume of travel service providers that have taken the Trust Earned Travel Pledge and display the TET Seal under the old design. However, if your comments result in some perceived additional “confidence” on behalf of those that see the free service that we provide, then we thank you for your thoughts. Go to http://www.tet.org and you can tour the site with its new look.