Customer Stories
Real teams, real results. See how companies like Deputy, Duke University, and Exclaimer build cultures where great work gets seen every day.
Across these 18 teams — spanning remote startups, global enterprises, universities, and professional communities — the common thread is making peer recognition an everyday habit. Duke University tripled recognition messages in one year. Haze Shift saw engagement up 30% in internal surveys. #paid built a self-sustaining culture for 100+ remote employees with no rewards at all. And Crossrope has been using HeyTaco since 2018.
Common questions
What kinds of companies use HeyTaco?
HeyTaco has been used by 5,000+ teams of all sizes and industries since 2016 — from remote startups to global enterprises and universities. Customers include Deputy (workforce management, 5 countries), Duke University (academic medicine), Exclaimer (275+ employees in tech), Bureau of Digital (a professional community of 1,400+ members), and Derrevere Stevens Black & Cozad (a fully remote law firm).
What results do HeyTaco customers typically see?
Results vary by team. Outcomes reported in individual customer stories include recognition messages tripling in one year (Duke University), engagement up 30% in internal surveys (Haze Shift), daily givers on the pilot team rising from 33% to 89% (Immunefi), company-wide recognition across 275+ employees (Exclaimer), and a team using HeyTaco since 2018 (Crossrope).
Does HeyTaco work for remote and distributed teams?
Yes — many of HeyTaco's most successful customers are fully remote or globally distributed. Deputy spans 5 countries, Derrevere Stevens Black & Cozad is a fully remote law firm, and #paid has run a self-sustaining remote recognition culture for 6+ years (as of 2025).
Do you need rewards to make peer recognition work?
No. Several long-running HeyTaco customers use no rewards at all — #paid has run recognition-only for 6+ years (as of 2025), and Insightly built a company-wide, values-tagged recognition channel without a rewards store. That said, in HeyTaco's 2016–2024 dataset, workspaces with rewards enabled recorded 80% more recognition activity and were more likely to expand adoption across the organization. These are observational associations, not proof that rewards caused them.
How quickly do teams see results with HeyTaco?
It varies, but some teams see recognition pick up quickly. Insightly sent nearly 500 tacos in its first two weeks, and on Immunefi's pilot team the share of people giving recognition daily rose from 33% to 89%. Across HeyTaco's 2016–2024 data, teams with a 1% higher average taco-giving rate were 90% more likely to still be active after one year. That is an observational association between teams, not proof of cause.
Does HeyTaco work for non-tech companies?
Yes. HeyTaco customers include healthcare organizations (Duke University), law firms (Derrevere Stevens Black & Cozad), sales teams (Outbound Sales Pro & Parakeet), and professional communities (Bureau of Digital), in addition to software and technology companies.