People of Vox: Spotlight on Shreya Bhavsar
At Vox, we believe our employees are the beating heart of our company, with merit and value built into all our available positions. In this edition of People of Vox, we meet Shreya Bhavsar, who works in the Cloud Support Division as a Cloud Support Engineer: Level 1. If you’ve ever phoned Vox for help with an email password reset or a website issue, there’s a good chance someone like Shreya – or ever Shreya herself – answered the call.
The Cloud Support Division does exactly what its name suggests: it supports the Cloud-based services that Vox sells to customers. When something isn’t working, or when a new customer needs help getting set up, the Cloud Support Division is there to assist.
Shreya explains: “I think the aspect that I enjoy the most is being able to help people. It really brings a smile to my face when somebody calls in and says, ‘I hope you are able to help me!’ – and I then try to reduce their stress levels, have a conversation, and work out what the problem is and how to fix it.”
It’s a reminder that behind every tech support call is a real person who just wants to get their customers’ tech working, and there’s a genuine skill and empathy involved in making this happen. Surprisingly for a person whose job involves speaking to others all day long, Shreya describes herself as being naturally quite introverted.
We find out more about how Shreya came to join Vox – including overcoming her innate shyness! – throughout her roles within the company to date. Let’s take a look at the person behind the headset.
Overcoming Challenges to Work for Vox
Shreya, who is currently officially based within the Vox Durban office, has been working within Vivica Holdings, Vox’s parent company, for around five years so far, of which she has spent about three years in her current Cloud role. She initially joined the Vox Group when she was not that long out of school, after first navigating through some challenges brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“I finished school in 2019,” she explains, “which was obviously a deeply inconvenient year for many people hoping to launch a career! Covid lockdowns from early 2020, and their lingering effects, meant that my initial post-school plans, and trying to figure out how to move forward with my career, had become more complicated than I’d first imagined when I was still in high school.”
As South Africa and the world continued to navigate the post-Covid aftermath and all its knock-on effects, Shreya channelled her energy into helping her parents set up a workshop, maximising her dad’s skills and experience as a mechanic.
“I assisted them with the business setup and then handled the IT side of the business, as well as generally keeping things running. It wasn’t a conventional start to a career, but it taught me a lot about how small businesses work and what technology can do for them,” she explains.
At the time, Shreya and her family were living in Tzaneen, Limpopo. She was out one day after lockdown restrictions had started to ease when she spotted a group of Vox employees involved in an in-person marketing campaign. She introduced herself and asked who she needed to speak to about requesting an interview. And from this brave and spur-of-the-moment leap of faith, the rest of her life story (to date!) now began to unfold – including the ‘meet cute’ with the man she’s going to marry.
[Editor’s note: More on this later; that was what we call a ‘teaser’… 😊]
Shreya joined as a salesperson, specifically as a Fibre to the Home (FTTH) specialist, which meant approaching households and convincing them to sign up for Fibre internet. As an introvert who doesn’t always find it easy to approach strangers, it was a genuine challenge.
“I didn’t do very well with speaking to people in general,” she admits. “It was hard to try and go up to people and not only speak to them but also convince them to buy a product from me.” But she persevered, she learned and she improved.
Her next chapter was with Frogfoot, the Fibre Network Operator (FNO) that was at the time part of the Vivica Holdings family. Shreya became the Frogfoot marketing representative for the Tzaneen area, and she clarifies that this required a completely different skill set from being part of the residential sales team.
“I now needed to engage with business owners, plan marketing campaigns and find local partners for events,” she says. “There were ways in which I felt like I had to re-learn so much of the information I’d previously built up in my previous role – it almost felt like I was starting again from scratch!
“Later still, I saw that there was a Cloud Support role available within the Vox ecosystem. I could see that it was a good fit with the IT world I’d always loved, including my IT studies at school, and so I interviewed for it, got the job, and started the month after. I’ve now been in my present position for three years and I’m really enjoying what I do!”
Loving Her Job and Her Team
Shreya’s Cloud team numbers 13 people and she gives her manager, Siphiwe Mashego, a special shout-out for being supportive, listening and acting on ideas. “He makes sure he hears us out and actually puts action behind the words,” she says. “Our team environment is one where questions are welcomed and colleagues step in to help one another.”
Beyond the structured training she’s been given, Shreya relies on research, hands-on practice and online information to solve the day-to-day challenges of her work. She explains: “Eighty percent of our first-line troubleshooting usually resolves the issue, and for the rest, the ticket gets escalated internally and the team coordinates follow-ups. A reassuring and patient voice goes a long way when customers are frustrated or worried, and there’s a particular satisfaction in calming a caller down, getting to the root of the problem and restoring their service,” she smiles.
“I also love the camaraderie at Vox, including the team culture, some of our quirky events and how Vox colleagues support each other. I have a vivid memory of a carnival-themed company event where everyone came decked out in character and masks – it was such a vibe! And it’s warm moments like this within the company that make my work feel like more than just a job.”
She’s come a long way in a relatively short time – both in her job, as well as from her original birthplace.
From India to Limpopo to the KZN North Coast
Shreya was born in India, but South Africa is all she’s ever really known, she says. “My mum moved the family here from India when I was just a few months old, settling first in Tzaneen in Limpopo, where we lived for close to nine years. From there, my family relocated to Louis Trichardt (now Makhado) before eventually moving to KwaZulu-Natal: first in Empangeni, then Stanger, for my final years of high school.”
Her family connections remain strong, and she’s been back to India three times, each time to her grandmother’s home in the Navsari district of Gujarat, roughly 250 kilometres north of Mumbai, India’s premier economic hub. Her first trip was at age seven, the second at 15, and her third trip happened after she’d finished school.
Today she lives in Ballito with her fiancé Adrian, close to the ocean, and she says that the coastal life suits her. “”I love KZN with all my heart, and being close to the ocean just feels so peaceful,” Shreya says. “I love being able to drive down to the water and sit and watch the waves.”
Love and Marriage and a Work ‘Meet Cute’
Shreya and her fiancé Adrian first crossed paths during the very Vox marketing campaign in Tzaneen that was mentioned earlier, when Shreya braved her shyness and initially approached the Vox team for help with getting a job interview. The person she spoke to just happened to be Adrian. You could say that she simultaneously furthered her career and found her future husband, all in the same conversation!
They’ve now been engaged for a couple of years and are enjoying having time to plan. “We’d like to have two ceremonies to reflect our different faiths, because Adrian is a Christian and I’m Hindu. My family from India will definitely be invited!” she smiles.
Away from work, Shreya is an avid reader, with her interests gravitating towards fantasy and romance. “I also love good food,’’ she remarks, “and I really love the fact that living in Ballito puts me near a variety of cuisine options that I didn’t have access to while living in a small town. Durban is just a 45‑minute drive away, and this means plenty of choices, whether I’m chasing a perfect pizza or Texas‑style ribs.”
Travel is high on her bucket list: she and Adrian would like to visit Tokyo in Japan, specifically to discover more on its anime culture – “An art form that we enjoy watching together” – and the religious temples.
“I’m always ready to visit anywhere that has beaches with white sand and clear water, and would love to undertake more family trips, both local and international, whenever the chance arises,” she says enthusiastically. “We’ve already explored parts of the Western Cape and Mpumalanga with Adrian’s extended family, and we definitely want to plan some international adventures in the future.”
Small-town Roots, Big-Hearted Service
Shreya’s journey to date has taken her from helping her parents with a workshop’s tech setup, to sales in a small town, to a Cloud role supporting thousands of customers remotely.
At Vox, her ambitions are practical and team-focused: she’d like to play a pivotal role in making the support team’s life easier, which includes embracing a role in training, streamlining processes and helping the team become more efficient. “I’m still learning,” she says, “but I would love to help with making support smoother and creating a better experience for both my customers and my colleagues.”
Shreya’s pathway shows a history of looking for opportunities and then persevering within new roles, and is a shining example of how curiosity, a willingness to learn and a team that backs you can lead to meaningful growth. In short, she’s another awesome member of our ‘People of Vox’ team!
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