Everything You Need To Know About Salesforce Lightning Vs Classic

If you work in sales and marketing, it can seem like an endless cycle of trying to talk to the right people, at the right time – with the right message. That’s why many professionals use CRM.

CRM software, like Salesforce, provides the most opportunities for business growth as it frees up precious time, improves leadership skills, and incorporates valuable lead insights.

All in all, CRM software makes your life much easier.

At the top of the CRM ladder is Salesforce, so we’ll be taking a deep dive into the features and versions it offers. This will allow you to make an educated decision about whether you should be using the Salesforce Lightning or Classic version.

• What Is Salesforce?
• Salesforce Benefits
• How Salesforce Works
• Salesforce Classic
• Salesforce Lightning
• A Comparison Of Features
• The Migration To Salesforce Lightning
• Salesforce Lightning VS Classic For HR Management

What Is Salesforce?

Salesforce is a cloud computing company with a tried and tested customer relationship management software targeted mainly at the sales, marketing, HR, and customer service sectors. Some of its top capabilities include:

• Sales Cloud – enables sales process automation, design, and management. You can also enjoy contact, lead, and opportunity insights management – as well as reporting and forecasting for sales reps
• Service Cloud – overall management of omnichannel customer service, case management, field service management, and customer service analytics
• Marketing Cloud – overlay across marketing campaigns, customer segmentation, social media advertising, and creation of customer communication scenarios.

Salesforce Benefits

According to a  Salesforce Customer Success Metrics Survey, the benefits of using its Sales Cloud are:

According to a Salesforce Relationship Survey, the benefits of using its Marketing Cloud are:

According to a Salesforce Relationship Survey, the benefits of using its Service Cloud are:

In 2019, Gartner, for example, awarded Salesforce the frontrunner in its Magic Quadrant For Sales Force Automation (for the 13th year in a row), and the Magic Quadrant For CRM Customer Engagement Center (for the 11th year in a row).

Salesforce ranks high amongst professionals as it has advanced functionality, great customization, and endless integration capabilities (including its integration with flair).

Over and above this, Salesforce boasts:

• A variety of products and add-ons for sales reps, customer service, and marketing needs for companies of all sizes and domains
• The availability of additional software
• Hands-on customer support, and self-service capabilities – like Trailhead – and product documentation for user training.

How Salesforce Works

Salesforce automates customer information while tracking all interactions with them. Your business can also enjoy streamlined internal processes with the assistance of automated email notifications, task deployments, and field updates.

Salesforce offers this by including:

• A 360-degree customer profile – a functionality that generates customer information, such as a company’s name and industry size, as well as a contact person’s name, job title, phone number, and email address
• Sales automation – advanced features like workflow rules, approvals, and ‘code-free’ automation of sales-related processes
• Marketing automation – the mass email feature allows you to create niche emails and track which contacts received them. The campaign management feature groups customers, delivers personalized messages to them, manages marketing campaigns across all channels, and tracks their results
• Customer service automation – this rich feature brings multiple customer communication channels into one place and assigns them to the necessary consultants. The knowledge base also helps your customer service department find solutions to your clients’ problems easier and quicker.

To enable you to decide which Salesforce tools you’d like to use and incorporate into your business, you can try out Salesforce’s 30-day trial period.

If you’d like to go one step further, why not try integrating your Salesforce dashboard with flair’s accurate analytics, real-time data, robust reporting – and more – by booking a demo.

Salesforce Classic

Salesforce Classic is the original version of Salesforce. However, it is crucial to be aware that since the development framework of their newer version, Salesforce Lightning, the Classic version is no longer upgraded, tweaked, and modified.

Salesforce still offers it, and for the time being, Classic will remain active for the foreseeable future.

With this in mind, many users do opt to sign up immediately for Lightning or make the switch if they are a current Classic user. Most companies want to stay ahead of the crowd and fear that by staying with Classic, they won’t have access to the best that Salesforce has to offer.

Even though Lightning has many capabilities, there are many reasons why business owners remain faithful to Classic.

• For those companies who have a larger Salesforce customer or user base, they may not want to migrate. This is because it can be an inconvenience, it can initially cost more money, and it can require some pre-and post-training
• Some Lightning users have reported slow loading times. Even though updates have been made to Lightning to reduce these times, Classic users still have the peace of mind of consistent loading times. As Lightning is constantly worked on, loading time issues should cease to exist very soon
• Some companies have based their processes on custom Salesforce coding and pages, which may not yet be available in Lightning’s interface. Thus, until coding can be replicated on Lightning, users may not want to risk losing their investment.

Salesforce Lightning

Salesforce Lightning is the upgraded version of this leading CRM. With its enhanced user experience and interface, professionals and companies can expect to enjoy a design that’s been optimized for all devices.

Lightning is targeted at a range of users representing:

• The ‘Lightning Experience and Framework’ for admin practitioners and developers
• The ‘Lightning Design System’ for styling Lightning apps.

Besides the updates to the aesthetics between Lightning vs Classic, Lightning also differs in the following ways:

• Advanced user experience: Lightning looks and feels much more refined, and the consistent design offers a simpler and smoother experience
• The Lightning component library: This is perfect if you are looking to create custom elements for your dashboard. What’s more, Salesforce has pre-built features that you can expand on, minimize, or enhance
• Lightning record pages: Lightning has various components that can be added or modified based on the size of your business, your industry, your objectives, and more. You can even make use of the Lightning App Builder to tailor your pages even further
• Lightning App Builder: The builder uses ‘point and click’ functionality to build custom pages
• Third-party apps on AppExchange: You can directly add third-party apps from the AppExchange within the builder. This will give you enhanced development and deployment capabilities.

You might be wondering how companies who have already made the switch to Lightning are doing? Well, in 2018, Salesforce conducted an economic impact study with Forrester. This revealed some pretty impressive results.

The optimized user interface helps immensely with productivity by creating a better view of your customer lifecycle in one place instead of juggling through pages and different sets of information.

The study also showed that sales teams had benefited the most from Lightning, as they added up to almost 50% of the total benefits of switching to Lightning.

Lightning users added up to around an hour a week of increased productivity. And if you look at decreased development time and costs, the overall return on investment for Salesforce Lightning was a considerable 341% (an average payback period of 14 months).

But if you look at Classic’s AI, Einstein, you’ll have a more in-depth dashboard for adding hourly data, adding in AI smart bots, and increasing sales productivity.

To help make your decision a bit clearer, let’s take it one step further by comparing Classic features and Lightning’s functionality side-by-side.

A Comparison of Features

The Architecture

With Salesforce Lightning, it uses Ajax technology that enables users to:

• Make and log calls
• Generate leads
• Have their information stored and rendered in one go.

Even though the page may sometimes not reload instantly, it’s just because it’s taking some pressure off of the server. On the other hand, Classic is not as automated in these areas.

Interface Improvements

With Lightning, you can create record types and validation rules simultaneously. Also, from the ‘Home’ screen, you can see performance charts and assistant features, which serve as a way for staff to view their assigned tasks.

You can also access any overdue tasks and important reminders. The platform has also added the ability to track contacts, add logos to different accounts, and internal users to see news from competitors.

These features are unfortunately not available in Classic. Furthermore, Classic falls short when it comes to opportunities and leads, which hinders the possibility of monitoring prospects and potential sales.

5 Things Salesforce Lightning Does Better

Protective Measures

In terms of security, Lightning is considered more reliable. With Classic, it has separated components, which leaves its long-time users at risk of cyberattacks regarding uploads.

Lightning has combated this by adding enhanced security features, such as changing access levels, adding additional rights, and logging in and out to enforce any changes made. This ultimately limits unauthorized privileges from being granted.

The Migration To Salesforce Lightning

It is worth mentioning that when Salesforce first launched, several issues needed to be ironed out. But in 2022, most of these issues were resolved or improved.

Salesforce has been forthcoming with its view that thousands of users should be using Lightning. In January 2020, they released the ‘Turn on Lightning Experience’ update, which automatically switched users over.

For any hesitant Classic users, Salesforce’s Lightning Experience Readiness Check tool gives them an overview of how much of their custom code can and can’t be migrated over to Lightning.

In cases where coding or the like can not be moved over, users can still use their existing Classic pages.

Salesforce is also in the business process of giving its users the information they need to see the return on investment they can expect from Lightning based on statistics, success stories, and reviews from users who have already migrated.

Overall, the toggle between the two platforms is rather easy, making it a seamless and enjoyable transition.

Salesforce Lightning VS Classic For HR Management

Live webinar with Deloitte: Transform your HR and employee engagement with Salesforce

Besides sales and marketing, do you know what’s a key driver when it comes to business success? Engaged, empowered, and equipped people. That’s why so many people also use Salesforce Lightning and Classic when it comes to their HR needs.

Comparing the two platforms for HR management, Lightning comes out on top as it offers an all-in-one place to be more productive and solve problems using ‘click or code.’ This minimizes the need to seek out external IT support and help.

Moreover, your staff will have a rich experience encompassing 24/7 support and training through Lightning’s Trailhead.

Some other benefits include:

• Consumer-rich experiences. Your employees will have the tools they need to share knowledge and collaborate easily, mobile or remotely

(Did you know that a study by Forbes found that businesses that promote collaborative working are five times more likely to be high-performing?)

• Empower your help desk. Your employees will enjoy digital self-service tools. This saves valuable time as your HR staff won’t have to tackle guesswork, human errors, and possible document duplication
• Build better apps. Your business can experiment, adapt, and find the right solution to your challenges with AppExchange. Not only this, but your teams will learn how to collaborate and wear many hats in more targeted ways
• Autonomous learning. Lightning offers the functionality to upskill your staff. Each member can choose their learning journey, manage their progress, and focus on more refined goals.

But you can reap even more rewards if you invest in a Salesforce integration partner like flair.

With us, you will be partnering with a holistic cloud-based provider designed to help you automate and manage your workplace functions, including:

• Recruiting
• Payroll
• Employee documents storage and engagement
• Time tracking
• Shift scheduling
• Recruiting
• Performance appraisal
• Goal setting
• Compensation
• Expense management, and more.

flair's custom application on Salesforce enables your HR managers to track overtime and automatically make bonus calculations to manage various payroll periods.

You can also efficiently handle your onboarding and offboarding, assign and deploy your employees’ shifts, handle overtime, and arrange your leave requirements in terms of availability.

If you make use of our Employee HUB, both your employees and managers can view and edit personal data, download and upload personal and company documents, submit and approve absence requests, and submit and receive performance reviews.

Some other key advantages of teaming up with flair include:

• Trust. Trust defines how your employees work together and treat each other, be it remote or in-office. Having a bigger picture overview of your business can minimize any internal tension or resistance to change
• Curiosity. Our modern interface prevents your team from becoming stagnant and frustrated. You can also encourage your members to grow as individuals and as a team by having up-to-the-minute information to work from
• Collaboration. A digital hub means that your team can work together, no matter the distance, time of day, or department a person is from
• Creativity. flair’s platform is designed with the user in mind, which means that you will have complete creative control and freedom to design your interface based on your unique business
• Ownership. Your team will be more equipped to take ownership and responsibility for their work.

If you’re ready to take the leap, flair is available for both iOS and Android users. So, get in touch with us and see how we can help you optimize both your Salesforce Classic and Lightning versions.

Introduction to Salesforce Lightning

Thanks to Salesforce’s ease of use, its app marketplace, and its customizability allowing potential customers to choose between two different versions of the software, organizations have been more motivated than ever to give Salesforce a try.

The decision between Salesforce Lightning vs Salesforce Classic can be a daunting one, and whichever one you decide to choose, there will naturally be some growing pains.

Many users would argue that if you don’t already have Salesforce, you should pick the Lightning version, as it offers the most up-to-date features.

Moreover, the learning curve is outweighed by its intuitive interface and smoother workflow. In addition, Classic may eventually be phased out, which is a significant factor to consider.

But some die-hard Classic users will remain loyal to it. This is because they understand its functionality, they have built their customer base on it, and their team has gotten into a routine with its features.

On the Lightning side of things, manual sharing is one highly requested feature that’s finally made its way. With the ‘sharing’ button now available, users will be even more tempted to make the shift.

This is due to users now being able to share a record with a user or group of users, which is a sought-after feature in any sales or marketing space where information sharing is the name of the game.

It can be argued that it doesn't make sense to invest in Classic for new Salesforce users. There is no active development process on the product, the classic interface is likely to become obsolete, and many integrations will work solely with the Lightning version.

For existing users, the concern is likely to be when and how to migrate to Salesforce Lightning, as timing and integration are key.

Moreover, now that most of Lightning’s missing features and speed issues have primarily been addressed, you may be thinking about migrating.

If this is you and your business, the real task will be to plan for your migration strategy so that your business can continue to get the most out of Salesforce.

It may take a series of days, weeks, or even months to fully move over to the ‘lighter’ side of Salesforce. As long as you have a game plan, an open mind, and a goal to succeed, you’ll be striking more deals in no time at all.

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