Vision Support Barrow & District

Vision Support Barrow & District is an independent charity supporting around 800 visually impaired people, and running a care home, within the South West corner of Cumbria. They made the Sensible choice back in 2016 and after 6 years we went back to have a chat with Carl Hodge, Chief Executive at VSBD, about our time working together.

Like most companies, their IT system is integral to the communications and day-to-day running of the business, and as a charity keeping costs down is a must. So, when the costs of their office technology services started significantly increasing, they knew they had to make a change.

That’s when they met Sensible; “By chance, we met Sensible through another local charity, and they offered great value for money and a ‘sensible’ approach to providing us with assistance.” Carl described that, Sensible “speedily and with a very professional approach” took over the IT support, phones and photocopier services at VSBD.

“Sensible Choice have helped us with our IT Support by providing us support with all our IT devices. These include our Windows Server, Laptops, Desktops and our Printing solutions. Most recently we’ve upgraded our old ISDN phones to a more up to date VOIP system.“

The new VoIP phone system means that VSBD are no longer restricted by the traditional ISDN phone lines, that are being phased out. Meaning the team can make and take multiple calls at the same time regardless of the physical lines to the office, as well as a host advanced call features such as voicemail-to-email, call recording and contact directories.

Now in late 2022, we asked Carl what the most significant improvements have been since working with Sensible. “Through working with Sensible we now have a safe, fast and workable IT system running throughout our charity, and if we have any problems, they are there to fix them really quickly. Overall, we have better connectivity to those we communicate with.”

When we asked for the main reason Carl would recommend Sensible, he told us “All the staff have great attitudes; they are very friendly and clearly know what they are on about. Phil Graham is also a talented and supportive MD.”

“Every now and again you come across a firm that breaks the trend and delivers first-class service to its customers. That is Sensible Choice.”