Elisabeth Robert
She rescues errant males at Vermont Teddy Bear
When Elisabeth Robert became the CEO of Vermont Teddy Bear Co. in 1997, the business was on the verge of bankruptcy and going through an identity crisis. "We were unable to sell teddy bears off of retail shelves for $70," Robert says. But she had no intention of cutting costs or outsourcing jobs.
Robert (pronounced Ro-BEAR) soon learned that most of the bears leaving the Madison Avenue store didn't go home with the purchaser but were shipped as gifts. Vermont Teddy Bear, Robert decided, had to be reinvented: from a teddy bear store to a Bear-Gram gift delivery business. And great rewards have come with that new identity, as the company's annual revenue soared to more than $66 million in 2005.
Robert attributes her success to understanding who her customer is and what he wants. She has even given him a name: "Late Jack." He's a guy who waits until the last minute to buy a gift for his girlfriend, wife, or mother and typically is nervous about finding something that's right. When Late Jack calls the Vermont Teddy Bear Co., he is immediately connected to a "bear counselor," a telephone operator armed with tips on how to meet his gift-giving needs, personalize the bear, and even write the card. Bear counselors spent 2.5 million minutes on the phone assisting customers last year. "The hand-holding and care of this desperate man is often one of our claims to fame," Robert says. "He's very willing to pull his credit card out to save his butt."
Romance. Valentine's Day accounts for a third of Vermont Teddy's Bear-Gram business, and the company spares no effort to satisfy Late Jack. Bears can be ordered as late as midnight on February 13 for guaranteed next-day delivery on Valentine's Day. Customers can also cancel or revise an order even after it is on the delivery truck. "Our customer service people," Robert says, "are ready and willing for him to call back 10 minutes later and say, 'I can't tell her I love her; I've only known her for 10 days.'"
Robert reaches her customers primarily through live radio endorsements and TV advertisements, 2,500 of which played for Valentine's Day in 2005. "Howard Stern is one of our great live-read advertisers," she says. And the connection with customers doesn't end when a loved one receives a bear. Vermont Teddy Bear will repair any injured bear at its so-called bear hospital. "Medical care is 100 percent paid for," Robert says. "We once received a bear that had been thrown out of the 10th floor of an apartment building. We sent it back with a parachute."
This story appears in the September 25, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.