# Set up your contact center in Connect Customer
<a name="amazon-connect-contact-centers"></a>

To get started, you [create an Connect Customer instance](amazon-connect-instances.md), which is your a virtual contact center. 

After you create an Connect Customer instance, you can:
+ [Test](chat-testing.md) the voice and chat experiences to learn how they work.
+ [Set up your channels](set-channels.md). How do you want customers to reach your contact center?
  + [Claim a phone number](ag-overview-numbers.md) for your contact center or [port](about-porting.md) your own phone number from another carrier.
  + [Set up the customer's chat experience](enable-chat-in-app.md). Developer skills are required.
  + [Set up SMS (text) messaging](setup-sms-messaging.md).
  + [Set up in-app, web, and video calling](inapp-calling.md) capabilities.
  + [Set up tasks](concepts-getting-started-tasks.md).
+ [Enable outbound calling](enable-outbound-calls.md), and set your [outbound caller ID](queues-callerid.md).
+ [Add](user-management.md) agents and other users. 
+ Review this [list](security-profile-list.md) of security profile permissions, and then [assign](assign-security-profile.md) security profile permissions to users so they can access those parts of Connect Customer that are appropriate to their roles.
+ [Set up routing](connect-queues.md). You can create a single queue for incoming contacts, or set up multiple queues so that you can route contacts to agents with specific skills.
+ Use the [default flows](contact-flow-default.md) that come with Connect Customer or [create](create-contact-flow.md#create-inbound-contact-flow) your own flows to define how your customers experience your contact center.
+ Provide your agents with [access](amazon-connect-contact-control-panel.md) to the Contact Control Panel (CCP), which they will use to interact with contacts. 

The topics in this section explain how to do these steps. 

**Topics**
+ [Connect Customer](enable-nextgeneration-amazonconnect.md)
+ [Create an Connect Customer instance](amazon-connect-instances.md)
+ [Test voice, chat, and task experiences in Connect Customer](chat-testing.md)
+ [Set up your channels](set-channels.md)
+ [Set up outbound calling](outbound-communications.md)
+ [Add users](manage-users.md)
+ [Set up routing](connect-queues.md)
+ [Set up agents](connect-agents.md)
+ [Provide access to the CCP](amazon-connect-contact-control-panel.md)