Disclosed herein are systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable storage media for determining call importance using social network context. A system can receive a call from a caller and establish the identity of the caller. The system can then retrieve a social network context associated with the caller identity from a social network and determine an importance score for the call using the social network context. Social network contexts can be derived from a social network profile, caller utterances, and a social graph. Based on the importance score, the contact center provides an appropriate level of customer service. The level of customer service a contact center provides can be based on resource availability, call type, call time, agent queue selection, offered communication modalities and customer follow-up.