Go City provide digital city passes for major tourist destinations around the world, allowing customers to access attractions, experiences and transport services through a single mobile application. Their app was strategically important to the business and evolving at a rapid pace.
The {Challenge}
New cities, integrations and customer features were being added continuously by an internal development team. But, as the platform expanded, the business was becoming less confident in how stable the app really was - and their customer reviews in the app stores reflected that inconsistency.
Their core problem here was visibility. As the app evolved, there was no structured process around regression testing, real-device validation or understanding how updates behaved across the wide range of devices their customers were actually using.
That challenge became particularly complex because of the app's international audience. Unlike a UK-focused product, Go City's users were spread globally across a highly fragmented mobile ecosystem, including lower-end Android devices and region-specific manufacturers that behaved very differently from standard flagship devices. As such, their team needed confidence that the app would behave reliably in a variety of conditions - before issues reached customers.
The <Solution/>
To solve the issue, we implemented MAP: our Mobile Assurance Program. MAP creates a proactive, repeatable testing and assurance process for mobile applications operating at scale.
We started by building detailed test scripts covering the full customer journey throughout the application, ensuring every major workflow, edge case and interaction had clear validation criteria attached to it. From there, we aligned testing against Go City's release structure. Major releases received full regression testing, while smaller updates focused on critical journeys and high-risk functionality. This allowed testing to remain thorough without unnecessarily slowing development velocity.
We also expanded our own physical device library specifically for the project. To achieve meaningful real-world coverage, we added devices from manufacturers including Huawei, Xiaomi and OnePlus - alongside the Apple and Samsung devices already in use. Using a vast array of devices, we were able to ensure our testing reflected the actual conditions their customers experienced globally.
Alongside testing, we proactively monitored Apple and Google platform updates, helping the Go City team prepare for operating system changes, deprecated technologies, evolving app store requirements and platform policy shifts.
Then, every issue identified during testing was reported directly into the client's workflow tooling, with clear explanations around regressions, compatibility risks, affected devices and release impact. Our successful rollout of MAP meant that it eventually became embedded directly into the wider release process itself.
The :[Results]
The most visible and immediate outcome was customer perception. Go City's app store ratings improved significantly, moving from the mid-threes to 4.7 on the Apple App Store and 4.8 on Google Play, reflecting a more stable, predictable and consistent experience across devices and operating systems.
This outcome was vital, but arguably superseded by their internal results - which was confidence. Their development team could now release updates knowing they had been validated properly. Regressions became easier to identify, and platform changes stopped becoming surprises. Release quality became far more predictable, meaning they could rest easy knowing the app was working well.
MAP also reduced their operational pressures, by giving the team clearer visibility into release readiness and long-term platform health. With the MAP launch a success, our working relationship expanded beyond testing alone. We supported the Go City team in their release management activities, helped troubleshoot critical production issues and became a trusted operational partner around their mobile platform.
One of the clearest indicators of that trust came later when Go City's CTO moved to Big Bus Tours and brought us in there as well, resulting in another long-term engagement supporting a globally used travel app.
The {Why}
Go City reinforced something important for us as a business. Originally, we saw MAP primarily as part of wider consultancy and development engagements. This project proved that mature in-house development teams also needed external confidence around regression testing, device fragmentation and mobile platform risk. But, the challenge is never a simple case of 'finding bugs' - it's creating long-term visibility.
If your team is releasing mobile updates without complete confidence in how they behave across real devices and real user conditions, it's probably time to take a closer look at your testing process.