Salesforce Lightning or Salesforce Classic? Both are very capable versions of Salesforce and both have their advantages. Currently salesforce is in the process of migrating all of their customers to the new Lightning experience, so you’ll need to transition eventually. Below we will walk you through the differences of the two versions and how they’ve improved upon the 20 year old CRM software!
Introduction to Salesforce
Salesforce is a CRM or Customer Relationship Management tool. It basically is a tool that helps you keep track of and build relationships with your customers or potential customers. It is cloud-based, so you can log into it from anywhere and scales with your team as you grow. It has been a major tool in most B2B businesses for the last 20 years and boasts over 150,000 clients from around the world. There is also a 3rd party app marketplace that makes it easy to install and run thousands of programs to improve your business operations.
They released Salesforce Lightning product in the winter of 2016, but after 16 years of users on an old platform, it is tough to have their entire customer base transition at once. When you’re an organization that has been using Salesforce for 10 years, you have processes set up that are hard to augment. It is possible to migrate your data over into salesforce lightning. Salesforce is actually in the process of transitioning all of their clients into their lightning product and does not sell the classic version to new customers. If you’re curious about the process, get in contact today!
Difference between Salesforce Lightning and Salesforce Classic
The main differences between the two separate versions are the user experience and technical features. Salesforce Lightning has included an impressive list of new features that aren’t included in Classic. The design and usability of the tool have also been greatly improved! Below is an example of how the interface looks!
Source: Salesforce.com via brandfolder.com/salesforce
Salesforce Lighting vs Classic: User experience comparison
The user experience upgrade is primarily for end-users. The admin now has the ability to drag and drop to edit and design their components to their liking. They don’t need to request code to be edited or changed, completely removing the development from the process. Now developers don’t have to be tasked with mundane aesthetic changes, they can now focus their time on app development and customization projects.
Users can now also design their own custom experiences utilizing business logic on lightning flow. With Lightning, you’re also able to see the activity timeline of your customers and keep track of their history. The low-code customizability of Salesforce Lightning really makes it a better option for every business.
Salesforce Lightning vs Classic: Technical comparison
Where the main improvements of Salesforce Lightning are with the user experience, there are some technical improvements as well! Overall, it loads quicker, holds more information, and lets you save and transfer more data. It also allows you to pull more data from data.com integration.
- Home Page Improvements: The home page now can present a performance chart, an assistant, news about your leads, and key deals you’re focused on.
- Dashboard Improvements: Now you’re able to have more columns on your dashboards. This is a vast improvement on the original and limiting 3 columns. You can customize them to include any information you would need.
Mobile App Improvements: Everything available in the cloud-based Salesforce Lightning produce, is easily used and operated on within the mobile app. This means you can view potential lead changes while away from your desk, traveling, or just away from the office.
source: Salesforce.com via brandfolder.com/salesforce
Any Drawbacks for Salesforce Lightning?
With any major application update, there are some drawbacks. These are primarily on the side of the time it takes to migrate from salesforce classic to salesforce lightning. Including the time to migrate from classic to lightning, there is the time to train your sales team on all the new features of lightning.
Considering the price, Salesforce Lightning doesn’t cost more than Classic. This means you will receive more functionality and easier to use the product without an additional monetary commitment. The main things that are going away in the lightning interface are in the opportunities section. The big deal alerts and the similar opportunities sections are getting removed.
Considering the overall improvements and the necessity of salesforce migrating all of their customers over the next few years, we highly encourage anyone still using classic to migrate over. If you’re curious about the process, please reach out to us here.
Source: Salesforce.com vs Brandfolder.com/salesforce
Process of Switching from Classic to Lightning
Step 1: Assess your needs
Review how your organization currently uses Salesforce and assess if transitioning to Lightning would improve their workflow. This usually takes sitting down with key people in each group of your organization to review how they utilize salesforce in their everyday tasks.
Step 2: Execute a gap analysis
Take time to map how your organization currently uses Salesforce and write out the benefits of lightning that they could potentially be using. Review it to see where the gaps are and this should give you a better understanding of what opportunity you are missing out on.
Step 3: Test out the Lightning Experience Readiness Check
Salesforce have developed a lightning experience readiness check tool that gives classic users the opportunity to test out lightning. It will review how your organization uses lightning and show you where you can improve!
Step 4: Get your team on board
We suggest sitting back down with your key people within each group of your organization and get a qualitative understanding of their experience with lightning. You want to migrate to Lightning with everyone in your organization on board, so this means sitting down and listening to everyone’s personal experience. There is still the opportunity to toggle between the lightning version back to the classic, if you wish.
Step 5: Make the jump!
The last step is to migrate! We do Salesforce consulting and can help your entire team migrate to Salesforce Lightning. Get in contact today to learn more!
