How QA Really Saves Companies from Disaster (Lessons from My First Two Years in Testing)

After spending a couple of years working in QA, I’ve come to realize something that doesn’t get talked about enough: QA isn’t just about finding bugs. In many ways, we’re the last safety net standing between a company and a major reputation meltdown.

And once you’ve seen how quickly things can spiral when testing is ignored – believe me, it sticks with you. Some of the stories I’ve come across in the industry have been downright wild. So I wanted to share a few examples – some I’ve witnessed firsthand, others shared by colleagues – that show just how much is at stake when it comes to quality.

Imagine a Food Delivery App That Can’t Find Your House

Let’s say a food delivery app goes live without properly testing its location system. The GPS is consistently off by about 200 meters. That might not sound like a big deal – but in the real world, it’s the difference between food arriving at your door or a nearby gas station.

Drivers get lost. Orders don’t show up. Customers wait for food that never comes. Naturally, frustration boils over and social media lights up with angry posts.

Eventually, it makes the local news under a headline like: “The App That Can’t Find Your House.” Restaurant partners start pulling out because they’re taking the blame for missed deliveries. And just like that, the company loses a huge chunk of its users in a matter of days.

Even after the GPS bug is fixed, rebuilding trust is another story. It could take months – if not longer.

This kind of situation is a perfect example of why location testing can’t be limited to just one neighborhood or city. If your app is meant to scale, testing has to scale with it.

When Chrome Users Couldn’t Use the Site

One story that really stuck with me involved an e-learning platform that had thoroughly tested everything – or so they thought. Turns out, they’d only tested in Firefox and Safari and completely overlooked Chrome… which happens to be used by about 65% of the internet.

So when launch day came around, things went sideways fast. Students couldn’t play videos, submit forms, or even log in. And this all happened right at the start of a new semester, when thousands of students were trying to access their online courses.

Screenshots of broken pages started making the rounds on Twitter and Reddit. Competitors quickly seized the opportunity, promoting their own Chrome-compatible platforms. And while the technical fix was relatively simple – a few library updates and CSS tweaks – the damage was already done. Three major universities pulled their contracts, and the company lost millions.

Why Social Media Makes Everything Worse

The reality is, when something breaks these days, it doesn’t go unnoticed. All it takes is one frustrated user posting about it on Twitter or Reddit, and suddenly everyone knows your app is broken.

At that point, companies often end up spending way more on damage control than they would have if they’d invested in proper testing from the start.

You see this kind of thing a lot in the gaming world. I remember hearing about racing games where corrupted save files caused players to lose 20+ hours of progress. Reddit exploded, refund requests flooded in, and sales for the company’s next title took a massive hit.

What I’ve Learned About Testing

After seeing how quickly things can go wrong, I’ve started to think about testing a little differently. It’s not just about making sure something works – it’s about asking, What happens when this breaks? Who does it affect? How badly could it go?

I now make a point of testing on a wide range of devices and networks. Developers are usually working on the latest hardware with fast, stable internet. Most users aren’t. If your app only works on flagship phones with perfect conditions, you’re excluding a huge part of your audience.

Cross-browser testing has saved us more than once. I remember one case where our checkout page looked totally fine in most browsers – but in Internet Explorer (yes, some people still use it), the “Buy” button didn’t appear at all. That would’ve meant missed revenue from corporate customers who were stuck using older systems. Luckily, we caught it in time.

The Side of QA That Managers Actually Care About

A lot of companies ask, “Why should we spend money on QA?” And the truth is simple: it’s way cheaper to catch bugs early than fix them later. Fixing a bug in production can cost 10 times more than fixing it during development – and if it causes real damage to your brand, that cost can multiply fast.

One mobile banking app I heard about had a critical security bug that was fixed in just one day. But regaining customer trust took two years and millions in marketing spend. Many customers never came back.

Or take an e-commerce site that crashed on Black Friday – their biggest day of the year. Yes, they lost a ton of sales, but the real damage was long-term: customers moved to competitors and never returned. The CEO later said the losses were bigger than the cost of hiring ten QA engineers for a full year.

Rethinking QA: Why Quality Is Everyone’s Business

In the best companies I’ve seen, QA isn’t just a team that hunts for bugs – it’s part of a bigger strategy to manage risk and protect the business from the kinds of problems that can hurt both the product and the brand.

When QA is involved early in the development process, the results speak for themselves. Quality specialists aren’t just there to test what’s already built – they help shape features before a single line of code is written. We think through how users will interact with something, what edge cases might cause issues, and where things could potentially fall apart. It’s always easier (and far cheaper) to build something right the first time than to fix it after it’s broken and in customers’ hands.

Final Thoughts

QA might not always be the flashiest part of tech, but when it’s done right, it quietly holds everything together. And when it’s ignored? Well, that’s when things start to fall apart – sometimes very publicly.

So no, we’re not just the people who file bug reports. We’re the ones helping companies avoid disasters, protect their reputation, and keep customers happy. And that, I’ve learned, is one of the most valuable roles you can have in tech.

Swan Software Solutions believes that quality assurance is an intrinsic part of the development process. To discover more about our QA or other technology services, schedule a free assessment.