Salesforce Lightning vs. Classic: Which is Right for Your Business?

At the turn of the last century, Salesforce took over as a cloud-based customer relationship management solution. For many years, Salesforce has stayed the industry leader in customer relationship management because it has evolved further and adapted to the modern business scenario. It is a great choice for businesses all over the world as it can adapt to any sector of business.

From a million-dollar company with a revenue of $176 million in 2005, today, Salesforce's revenue has reached $34.9 billion by 2024. There are two Salesforce suites that you can use for your business. One is the Salesforce classic suite, and the other is Salesforce Lightning. These two suites are different, and you can choose between them depending on what kind of operations you want to automate.

What is Salesforce Classic?

Salesforce Classic is the suite that has been there since the beginning of the company, and it is a very familiar interface for users. Salesforce Classic is still used by many established companies because it is a very simple and familiar UI that people can use without much training.

Classic is a suite that can support customizations and additions of multiple elements into the app framework for managing communication with customers. It is a very stable environment where the user can take a lot of actions and view reports in the same dashboard.

Benefits of ClassicLightning:

The reason some companies still prefer using the Salesforce Classic suite is because it is very familiar with its UI and can be easily trained upon. Moreover, it is a system that can go along with other legacy systems that some of the established companies work with. It is comparatively simpler than Salesforce lightning components, so it is still a good choice for a business. If you have legacy systems and want to work with something simpler, then choose the Classic suite over Salesforce lightning services.

What is Salesforce Lightning?

Salesforce lightning services are more modern and are based on contemporary user frameworks. As businesses evolve and their needs become more specific, the Salesforce lightning components are here to offer them better optimization and customization.

With the evolution of the tech landscape and the growth of the industries into branches, companies are using the Salesforce lightning suite for its advanced features and tools. The suite is very useful because of the kind of third-party integrations and seamless UI it offers. A salesforce lightning expert can configure the suite for a business with specific goals and support internal as well as external operations to a great extent.

●     Benefits of Lightning

Salesforce lightning services can be used to grow team productivity. The human resources that you have in your company need some tools to improve their level of productivity. A good thing is that the Salesforce Lightning suite offers tools like Kanban Views and Einstein AI Analytics to help improve productivity in different areas. For example, the Kanban views feature helps visualize tasks and opportunities in a workflow so that workers can prioritize their tasks and complete them faster.

Similarly, Einstein Analytics is present, which helps in gathering analyzed insights and predictions about a situation so that the team can proactively manage the said situation with its capabilities.

Many businesses need to use a customized platform for Customer relationship management, which is specific to their niche. It is important to gather insights and customize Salesforce's platform.

A Salesforce Lightning expert can customize the platform with the help of the internal native app builder, which can add functions to the platform to improve results and workflows. The use of the Salesforce lightning components can help build smooth navigations and movements in the suite so that the platform users can manage the tasks and complete them very quickly.

The way Salesforce Lightning is open for customizations and adaptations is an advantage that modern businesses can use.

Key Differences Between Salesforce Lightning and Classic

1.     User Interface and Design

● Classic: A Salesforce Classic platform is more traditional, with its UI being less responsive. The UI of the Salesforce Classic platform is more text-heavy and less interactive, which may not be a good thing for modern workers. However, it does have the benefit of stating the details and focusing more on the task than the aesthetic.

●    Lightning: A salesforce lightning consultant will tell you about how it is different from the classic suite. For example, the UI of the Salesforce Lightning suite is sleeker and more interactive. It focuses more on animation and multimedia as per the contemporary feel. The Salesforce Lightning Consultant will be able to improve the user experience with customization so that your team will be able to interact with customers in a better way.

2.     Performance and Speed

●   Classic: The Salesforce Classic suite is slower and more difficult to use than the Salesforce Lightning suite. If you have a fast-paced, modern business that has updated systems, then you need to go for the Salesforce Lightning suite over the Classic model.

●  Lightning: Salesforce Lightning experts usually suggest the use of the Salesforce Lightning suite because it is more dynamic and fast-loading. With the automation tools that we use today in the modern-day workplace, workers do not have the time to wait for a suite to load. For optimal productivity and speed, it is important to use the Salesforce Lightning suite, as it can be very dynamic and responsive in nature.

3.     Mobile Access

●   Classic: Compared to Salesforce Lightning, Salesforce Classic is limited to desktop and laptop modes. The Classic suite is less optimized for running on mobile devices and platforms, which limits its usability.

●  Lightning: When designing the Salesforce Lightning suite, the Salesforce Lightning expert team has used insights from how workers are now using mobile phones and tablets to do their work. Even customers are now more dependent on mobile phones.

Therefore, the addition of mobile tools and optimization of the suite for mobile usage are important features of Lightning.

4.     Customization and Flexibility

●   Classic: The Salesforce Classic version is not so adaptable to customizations and needs changes in code blocks to carry out customization. Therefore, before making a customization, the business has to plan for it and gather a team to get the customization done from the base level. It takes time and resources to create and use these customizations.

●     Lightning: A good feature of the Salesforce Lightning suite is how easy it is to customize the platform. The best feature is that you can easily drag and drop from the app builder to customize the Salesforce platform for the business. With a little bit of training, anyone can customize and improve the Salesforce Lightning platform and get to work with them.

5.     Productivity Features

●  Classic: Salesforce Classic, on the other hand, does not offer advanced productivity features or tools. It has tools that support basic productivity, which is good for small businesses and startups that see a low volume of work.

●   Lightning: The Salesforce Lightning suite presents additional features like an activity timeline and tracking tools that can help monitor and boost the overall productivity of the team. Lightning can be used in a customized manner to make changes and improve team productivity.

6.     AI and Automation

●   Classic: Salesforce Classic, in comparison to Lightning, is not that easy to use as it does not have many automation options. Salesforce Classic can only operate semi-automatedly and is not the best in terms of intelligence or speed. In the modern era, Salesforce Classic might not be the best fit for a business as it lacks the integration of AI.

●   Lightning: Salesforce Lightning is a suite that can easily integrate with the native AI suite of Einstein that Salesforce offers. With Einstein AI, you can get access to the features of predictive analytics around a customer query or an ongoing situation so that the team knows what to do to mitigate the problem even before it blows up.

From lead scoring to opportunity insights, everything is possible with the help of Einstein AI, which can run the platform very smoothly and support marketing and sales. The Einstein AI feature is very intelligent, and it can help you with the classification of cases so that the team can resolve different cases on a priority basis.

Moreover, the automation of AI also works in predicting the next best step for the steps that the team needs to take so that the team can complete a task quickly.

Ready to Boost Productivity? Experience Salesforce Lightning!

The best way to use the Salesforce suite is to hire a Salesforce lightning cloud consultant from a good Salesforce implementation company and then take his advice on implementing the platform and the customized features. The good thing about Salesforce is that the suites can be customized according to the business and customer base. If you have a business that is based on a legacy system and does not want to go for a large number of customizations, then you can stick with the Salesforce Classic suite. If you need to tailor the platform for its digital capabilities and intelligence so CRM can go through smoothly, then choose Salesforce Lightning right from the start.