City Hunt Phone System Success Story
RingCentral interviewed Katya Fisher, Marketing and PR Director of NYC-based City Hunt. City Hunt is an "experiential adventure agency" that develops custom-made scavenger hunts, primarily for employees of large organizations such as PepsiCo, Sony, Nextel, Pfizer, Sports Illustrated, United Nations, Time Warner, Deloitte and many others
What is City Hunt all about? How does it work?
Katya: We help employees with something they want to build on, such as teamwork or math skills, by sending them to different areas of the city to solve riddles and clues and play games. They're learning how to work together.
We also do public hunts and pub crawls for the general public.
Can you give you an example?
 Katya: The craziest one we did was in Shanghai, China. A micro-electronics company was sending employees to Shanghai to learn about the city and they wanted them to do it in a fun way. We created an entire adventure where employees had to learn about local customs and landmarks--we put clues in fortune cookies and had employees ride rickshaws for transportation. They had to learn how to use chopsticks as part of the game.
Currently we're working with one major company on a product launch, and we created an adventure where journalists actually have to use the product to get through the game.
Is there a trend toward getting employees to play games together, like in the boom years?
Katya: There is a tremendous trend. There was a huge article about interns in the New York Times recently. Companies are now scrambling to get the best interns, and they started to implement these things to attract and train them.
Who founded the company and when?
Katya: Ben Hoffman and Jaymes Dec founded the company in 2001. They both went to NYU and were working for other companies at the time. They created these hunts for a friend's party and it took off from there.
What do these adventures accomplish?
 Katya: One big one is team-building. Corporate companies will mix interns with VPs, people from different departments--and they'll have to work together to solve clues. We have one public hunt called the "Da Vinci Hunt" where we incorporated some ideas behind the Da Vinci Code to help people learn about New York City. But for corporate clients, the clues and games are geared toward specific skills the client wants their employees to work on, so if math skills is one, then we'll have trivia questions with mathematical equations. For the United Nations Junior Ambassadors, the clues helped them learn about geography.
Who uses your services?
Katya: Anyone, but mostly major corporations and some private groups.
I'm seeing bachelorette parties.
 Katya: Yes, we do some bachelorette parties. For instance, we'll have the women pose as Charlie's Angels. They get their own Bosley to escort them around the city and find the kidnapped finance. They'll go to the more fun places in the city.
How do you organize hunts in other cities?
Katya: The public events are all in NYC, but Ben and Jaymes go to other cities to do special events. They just did a major event in West Virginia, and they're going to Detroit and Chicago.
How do you use RingCentral?
Katya: We use it for our toll free number, 877-HUNT-FUN, and call forwarding. Calls are forwarded to sales, media relations and employee's private numbers. In addition, clues for the games are recorded and assigned to different extensions. While the participants are sleuthing around town, they use their cell phones to dial City Hunt's number and enter an extension to get to the next clue.
 I can tell you one instance when RingCentral really helped us a lot. It was during one of the Da Vinci hunts and the participants were Australian students. You have to use your cell phone for this game to call in and get the clues, but none of them had any so we added an extension to our toll free number. We forwarded that extension to the normal number they were suppose to call, so they were able to use the pay phones and get to the clues toll-free. The games went off without a hitch and everyone had a fantastic time.
What do you charge for your hunts?
Katya: Public hunts are $20 to $30 per person. The private hunts range from $50 per person (baccalaureate), to $100, $150 or more per person for larger corporate events.
For more information about City Hunt, visit their web site: www.cityhunt.org or dial 877-HUNT-FUN.
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