It’s tough for early adopters of Salesforce Lightning Experience to imagine that enterprise companies are still using Salesforce Classic. However, switching from Salesforce Classic to Salesforce Lightning Experience is no easy task for companies with thousands of Salesforce users whose day-to-day work tasks are dependent on the platform.
Changing to Salesforce Lightning Experience can require a sizable investment for enterprise-level companies, but the functionality gained is well worth the investment. It’s so much more than a beautiful user interface — it actually improves how Salesforce users work and make decisions for organizations.
Salesforce Lightning Experience is here to stay, and many enterprise-level companies have already made the switch from Salesforce Classic. Switching to Salesforce Lightning Experience may seem like a monumental endeavor, but it’s easier to accomplish with a carefully planned Salesforce project roadmap and a strategic Salesforce consulting partner with proven expertise in Lightning Experience.
Brief History of Salesforce Lightning Experience
Salesforce slowly introduced Lightning Experience in Summer 2015 and held an official launch at Dreamforce 2015. Since that initial launch, Salesforce has released updates to Salesforce Lightning Experience three times each year: Spring, Summer, and Winter.
Salesforce Lightning Experience combines the Lightning Design System, Lightning App Builder, and Lightning Components to enable users to easily configure and create apps for virtually any business use case. The interface is revolutionary in the sense that it gives users the power to configure Salesforce orgs using declarative practices, which is also known as clicks, not code.
Difference between Salesforce Lightning and Salesforce Classic
Salesforce Lightning Experience uses a component-based framework that is used for application development, which simplifies configuration processes for Salesforce users who lack the programming experience to build imperatively.
Salesforce Lighting Experience can be customized and configured with the click of a button rather than writing lines of code. Salesforce Classic, on the other hand, requires deep knowledge of coding to build customized solutions.
The masterminds at Salesforce continue to make enhancements to Lightning Experience each year, and the user interface (UI) was made available to all Salesforce users with the Salesforce Winter ‘20 Release through the use of a toggle or switcher button.
Why Companies are Switching to Salesforce Lighting Experience
Salesforce is no longer making enhancements to Salesforce Classic, which means there are many features, apps, and integrations that are only available in Lightning Experience. Additionally, Salesforce has been subtly nudging customers to adopt Lightning Experience through updates, like the Winter ‘20 Lightning Experience toggle button, and delaying Lightning Experience adoption can cause issues down the road. For example, certain links that are created in Salesforce Lightning Experience may not work for Salesforce Classic users.
It makes perfect sense for current Salesforce customers who use Salesforce Classic to work toward implementing Lightning Experience as soon as possible, and the following six features are only a small taste of the enhanced functionality and improved efficiency Salesforce customers gain with Lightning Experience.
Six Features That Are Only Available in Salesforce Lightning Experience
Here are six features only available in Salesforce Lightning Experience that will have Salesforce Classic users, admins, and analysts eager to make the switch.
1. Salesforce Lightning Kanban View
The Kanban view is exclusive to Salesforce Lightning Experience, and it’s become such a staple to many Salesforce users’ workdays. Salesforce users may think of the Kanban view as more of a workspace than a specific view within Salesforce records organized through user-selected filters.
When looking at an opportunity list view, Salesforce users can select to view active sales opportunities on a Kanban board organized by stage in the pipeline. This view shows Salesforce users all of the opportunities within a filter and totaled by stage. From here, Salesforce users can get a clear view of the sales pipeline.
2. Salesforce Lightning Paths
Teams of Salesforce users often need guidance as they are working on opportunities or other objects with complex processes. Paths, which are exclusive to Salesforce Lightning, offer key fields and guidance as they work through the various stages of a sales opportunity. They essentially take Salesforce users through complex sales processes by offering guidance and prompts to move them through predetermined steps.
Paths are available for the following objects in Salesforce Lightning Experience:
Accounts (business accounts and person accounts)
Campaigns
Cases
Contacts
Contracts
Fulfillment order
Leads
Opportunities
Orders
Quotes
Service appointments
Work orders
Work order line items
Custom objects
3. Salesforce Lightning Dialer
When managing a high-volume call center or any team communicating with customers and prospects via telephone, managers need to know certain information about the calls their team is making. Ideally, all of that information is pulled into Salesforce Classic in real time.
Well, what if the phone functionality actually lived in Salesforce? Salesforce Lightning Experience reduces clicks and saves precious call center agents’ time with Lightning Dialer, which connects the Salesforce user interface with telephony systems. This Salesforce phone solution streamlines calls and captures key performance indicators along the way.
4. Salesforce Experience Cloud Communities
Salesforce Experience Cloud is the official name for Salesforce communities, which are strategic tools companies and organizations use to connect with customers and partners through shared portals on the Salesforce platform. With Salesforce Lightning Experience, community portals are easier to create, implement, brand, and maintain than ever before.
Salesforce Experience Cloud communities offer a powerful drag-and-drop interface that allows Salesforce users to easily add new content and functionality. Salesforce Experience Cloud even offers templates to make creating beautiful communities easier than ever.
Salesforce Communities may be available in Salesforce Classic instances, but only companies using Salesforce Lightning Experience are able to use the full functionality that’s available for Salesforce Experience Cloud communities.
5. Email Integrations for Salesforce Lightning Experience
Do your users want to work in one system without flipping back and forth between email and Salesforce? Salesforce Lightning email integrations for Microsoft Outlook or Gmail bring all Salesforce data, task management, and call logging into email user interfaces. Users gain new efficiency by working directly from Outlook or Gmail and having all the support they need from Salesforce.
Salesforce email integrations may be available in Salesforce Classic instances, but only companies using Salesforce Lightning Experience are able to use the full functionality that’s available for Salesforce for Gmail or Outlook.
6. Salesforce Lightning Snap-Ins Chat Functionality
Customers, prospects, or donors who visit your website often have questions they’d like to have answered immediately. At the same time, many questions can be answered through chatbot technology thus freeing live agents to work with more in-depth website inquiries.
With Salesforce Lightning Snap-Ins, the Live Agent Chat experience becomes simpler and more beautiful than ever. Snap-Ins allows Salesforce customers to add branding to chat experience, and it can even be used for case deflection purposes. Using Snap-ins paves the way for Einstein Bots to handle chat inquiries from your website users, which can significantly decrease the number of cases that need human attention from live chat agents.
Conclusion & Resources
Salesforce Lightning Experience offers powerful tools that provide amazing insight and create efficiency in your Salesforce org, and Salesforce is making all future innovations in Lightning Experience. It’s here to stay, and it’s likely that all Salesforce customers will eventually make the switch from Salesforce Classic to Lightning Experience.
But fear not! Many Salesforce customers have already made the switch and benefitted from the increased functionality and efficiency. Salesforce account managers and Salesforce-recognized consulting partners are essential and valuable resources to have along the way.
Resources
Salesforce Trailhead Trail: Make the Move to Lightning Experience
CRM Science Blog: How to Successfully Switch to Salesforce Lightning Experience
CRM Science Client Success Story: 2018 Salesforce Partner Innovation Award (PIA) for Lightning Leadership with AAMCO
Contact CRM Science Salesforce Consultants
Looking for help converting your org from Salesforce Classic to Salesforce Lightning Experience? The CRM Science team has been recognized by Salesforce with a Salesforce Lightning Master Navigator Distinction after delivering expertise and depth of knowledge in Lightning Experience.
Taking a consultative approach, the team works with IT leadership to create operational and user adoption strategies to successfully switch to Salesforce Lightning Experience. Click here to contact us and chat about Salesforce Lightning Experience.
