Keeping down costs as much as possible without sacrificing quality is critical to any small business if it’s going to stay competitive, maintain a high customer satisfaction rate, and ultimately grow into a medium or even large-sized business somewhere down the road.

Many small businesses these days can be run by only one or a few people, at least in their “infant stage,” and sometimes can even be run entirely from a home office with no physical business property.

But no matter how minimalistic your business may be, there are three areas you probably can’t do without: a quality business phone system, a good website hosting service, and fast, affordable shipping. Learn to shave down expenses in each of these three key areas, and it adds up fast and bolsters your bottom line. Here’s how.

1. A “Virtual” Business Phone System

Poor customer service is the number one reason for customer loss, and the high turnover rates typical with most businesses present a great opportunity: create high customer retention rates and almost all of your new “converts” are “real” growth.

Having a professional aura to your phone system is a big part of maintaining high customer service standards. But business phone systems, both hardware and software, can be very expensive for small businesses. How shall we solve this dilemma?

UniTel Voice allows you to transform your cell phone(s) into a virtual business phone system that sounds and feels truly professional to your contacts. You get toll free, local, and vanity numbers; professional greetings with department and/or employee extensions; voicemail and faxing; multiple numbers per phone or multiple phones per number; and more. It all adds up to complete mobility, incredible versatility, and unexpected affordability.

2. Affordable Website Hosting

Everyone has to have an online presence these days to make it in the business world, at least, in most industries. But how can you find affordable Web hosting that still meets all of your needs?

The link above will introduce you to some answers to the question of how to have a great website and hosting service at a price penny-pinched small businesses can afford. Unless your Web pages are delivered with reasonable speed, you’ll lose customers.

And you may also need email marketing, a blog, ecommerce capability, file sharing, online chat or other customer support, and more to keep your site visitors happy enough to return. Plus, you need 24/7 support to ensure you can keep your site up and running and correct any problems quickly. All of this can be done with customized Web hosting that’s trim enough to be inexpensive but big enough where it counts to get the job done.

3. Mail Delivery

Almost all small businesses will send at least some products through the mail to customers, and finding the most cost-effective mail delivery options in each instance adds up savings fast.

While there are other options out there, the three main senders are USPS, FedEX, and UPS. US Postal delivery is usually the cheapest for smaller packages, but check out the rates in the link above to see how heavier packages are often better priced and faster delivered with UPS or FedEx. And anything over 70 pounds will have to be delivered by some entity other than the US postal system.

Finally, there are also postal delivery and warehousing outsourcing partners out there that can greatly simplify your customer delivery at very competitive price points.

Trim down overhead on postal delivery, Web hosting services, and business phone systems while still maintaining high standards customers approve of, and you’ll save big on your bottom line.