It's been four years and couple of months since Salesforce introduced faster, modern, and more powerful version of it's CRM to the world. They called it, Salesforce Lightning. It promised to maximize the productivity of sales reps, provide meaningful insights into customer data, and help you create a new way to sell.
A couple of years have passed, and Lightning have delivered ten times more than they promised, but yet there are still people hesitating about making the switch from Classic to Lighting. Reason? They are still not sure of the benefits it'll provide. For that purpose, we will provide you with 20 Salesforce Lightning things that will make you switch to Salesforce Lightning.
1. It's one of their latest innovations
Salesforce has defined the cloud computing space, and they are keep shaping the future of the Cloud. By switching it on, you access the latest in this innovation. You also get each and every Lightning improvement they make, thanks to three automatic upgrades per year.
2.Automate your sales process
Salesforce Lightning comes loaded with new and updated features that make it easier than ever to manage the sales process.
The Sales Path offers sales coaching by visually displaying each opportunity in the sales pipeline and showing recommendations for next steps to take. This enables sales reps to take quick and more accurate action on their opportunities within each stage of the pipeline. Likewise, because Sales Path allows you to visually define a sales process, it creates a system of accountability and encourages sales reps to follow it. This way, everyone is in line with the way your company sells.
Sales Path in Salesforce Lightning (Image Source)
3. Innovations in Sales
Lightning offers more than 150 new features. That’s too many to list individually here, but rest assured that we talked to thousands of salespeople to surface the tools they wanted the most. Each one is designed to make reps more productive and drive business forward.
4. Keep track of all your sales activities
With Salesforce Lightning sales managers can track individual performance of sales reps, so they can measure sales success often. With metrics like Activity to Opportunity or Type of Activity they can do that easily. These metrics provide insight into what’s really going on.
Examples: Are sales reps making phone calls when they say they are? Are they completing each stage in the pipeline?
5. Lightning Voice
Speaking of new features, Lightning Voice for Salesforce is a game-changer for salespeople. It connects them to customers and prospects faster than ever by enabling voice calls directly within Sales Cloud. This means wherever you are using Salesforce, including on your mobile device, you can make and receive calls in context, while taking notes and logging these calls at the same time. You can even choose a number that’s local to your territory.
Lightning Voice in Salesforce Lightning (Image Source)
6. Salesforce Mobile App
Salesforce Mobile App is built on top of the Lightning Platform. Both innovations served as catalysts for the re-imagined Lightning desktop experience. Any and every customization that happens there is immediately accessible on any mobile device via Salesforce Mobile App.
Now Sales reps can access their data from anywhere, anytime.
7. Lightning App Builder
With the Lightning App Builder, you can completely customize your Salesforce experience to fit your team’s needs. You don't need to be a hard core developer to build apps. With the simple and intuitive drag-and-drop tool allows you to build Lightning pages in seconds by selecting components from the components library, where you’ll find pre-built Salesforce components and components built by Salesforce partners.
Lightning App Builder (Image Source)
8. Salesforce CPQ
Built 100% on Lightning, Salesforce CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) makes Sales Cloud the first lead to cash sales platform in the industry. Now reps can easily do complicated quoting, get discount approval, generate branded proposals and contracts, and even collect signatures, without ever leaving their CRM.
9. Lightning for Outlook
Salesforce and Microsoft have formed a strategic partnership which brings the world’s #1 CRM and the world’s leading productivity suite together. Now you can access Lightning from your Outlook, without jumping between programs. The 100% cloud-based Lightning Sync also keeps your contacts and calendar up-to-date across Salesforce and your Office 365 and Microsoft Exchange accounts.
10. Lightning for Gmail
Same way Salesforce formed partnership with Microsoft they formed one with Gmail. Lightning for Gmail is a free, native (read: out-of-the-box) application that allows any Salesforce users (on Classic or on Lightning) to synchronize their Google G Suite Gmail inbox with Salesforce CRM. Users can add emails and meetings right into Salesforce, associating them to the right contacts, accounts, and opportunities. And while in Gmail, users can view Salesforce CRM info related to their emails, like contacts, deals, and more.
11. AppExchange Apps
There are more than 4000 apps on AppExchange and most of them are Lightning ready third-party apps. All are inspected and integrated to work in Salesforce. Lightning ready apps are designed to deliver the most consistent user experience as you move your organization to Lightning. Look for the “Lightning Ready” symbol on AppExchange and read about many of them by downloading this free e-book.
12. Clean up duplicate data faster
Cleaning your data is essential to any organization — when sales reps don’t have to think twice about the quality of their data, and focus more time on what matters most: developing quality customer relationships.
Merging Data in Salesforce Lightning (Image Source)
13. Lightning Snap-Ins
The Lightning Snap-Ins feature from Service Cloud Lightning is built with Lightning Components. Snap-Ins allow companies to quickly integrate customer support directly into their apps and web pages. This makes it easy to reach customers effectively, right where they are. You can learn about Snap-Ins by watching this video.
14. Utility Bar
The utility bar gives your users quick access to common, productivity tools, like Notes and Recent Items. It appears as a fixed footer that users can access to open utilities in docked panels.
15. Highlights Panel
The Highlight Panel helps you customize your most important fields using the Compact Layout per object and have them display at the top of your users’ record pages in the Highlights Panel. First was introduced in Salesforce Mobile App, then they brought this forth to Lightning Experience.
Note: Not to be confused with the Highlights Panel layout in Classic that was only available for Cases, this is brand new and available for all entities!
16. Einstein Analytics
Salesforce Einstein is an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that is powered by “advanced machine learning, deep learning, predictive analytics, natural language processing, and smart data discovery”, according to Salesforce. This all sounds incredibly complicated, but the value it provides is actually quite simple.
Einstein in Salesforce Lightning (Image Source)
As you use Salesforce, Einstein learns from everything: the data, the behaviors, the interactions — just to name a few. Applying what it learned to discover customer insights, predict possible outcomes, recommend next steps, and even automate tasks. Einstein is continually learning and fine-tuning itself, becoming smarter with every activity and piece of data that enters the Salesforce Lightning platform. Essentially, the more you use it, the more useful it becomes.
What Einstein means for sales reps are not only higher quality leads, but the ability to make smarter decisions, and take action faster. Likewise, the automation of tasks frees up time to focus on what’s most important.
17. Enhanced Reports and Dashboards
And what’s one specific aspect of a CRM where its “look and feel” matters a great deal? Reporting. Unsurprisingly, the switch to Lightning brings with it numerous upgrades to both reports and dashboards. What’s more, in the Winter ‘20 release, Salesforce offered a quite few new things regarding the reporting.
The trend is the same for dashboards. Enhanced dashboard filters, custom coloring, enhanced tables — Lightning dashboards provide many features that Classic ones don’t. So, to find the perfect view of your data, we recommend starting in the newer UI. It gives executives, managers and end users alike the best grasp of actionable insights, allowing all levels of a business to drive improvements and respond to market changes.
18. A Proven Increase in ROI
This part may not represent a separate advantage of its own, but more of an overarching point that results from the Salesforce Lightning benefits above. A poll of 500 Salesforce customers revealed that the switch to Lightning resulted in various performances improvements:
- A 41% boost to productivity
- A 21% increase in win rate
- A 23% faster time to close
- A 44% higher conversion rate
- A 40% uptick in collaboration
So, you shouldn’t just think of Lightning as a bundle of visual improvements. These stats show the concrete impact the newer experience can have on your overall business health and bottom line.
19. Improved Functionality & Productivity
One common misconception is that Salesforce Lightning is merely a change in look and feel. The Lightning platform was actually redesigned from the ground up, meaning that it offers deep-seated enhancements over Classic. A great example is the flexibility of Lightning pages. Each page you create in Lightning is built on a customized canvas, providing you full control over which elements appear where.
And above all, the Lightning experience offers numerous productivity features that can speed the work of any user. Utility bar components, global actions, your favorites list — users can access many of their favorite tools on the same screen in Lightning, while page-specific tools like the Kanban view and homepage reminders give you a command center in which you can better plan out your work. All of these features result in saved time for your employees, allowing them to get more done with less. That directly translates to an improved bottom line.
20. Lightning Customer Community
The Lightning Customer Community is the most feature-packed release in the history of Community Cloud, enabling companies to quickly and intelligently engage with their customers. The all-new UX offers a new level of personalized experience, plus engagement opportunities that help your business provide an unparalleled customer experience.
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