What happens on the MCS onboarding call (and how to prepare)

Every MCS certified business has to be operating under the redeveloped installer scheme by 31 March 2027. Your certification body decides when your turn comes, and when it does, the move starts with paperwork you'd expect (an application, a review) and then a step that surprises people: a 15-minute phone call with MCS.

It's called the onboarding call, it's the first part of MCS's scheme checks, and it's the moment the redeveloped scheme stops being a policy you read about and becomes a conversation about your business. Here's what it covers, who should be on it, and how to prepare so it's the easiest 15 minutes of your transition.

Where the call sits in your move

When your certification body contacts you, you submit your application information to them, they review it and notify MCS. At that point two things happen in parallel: your certification body starts managing your transition, and MCS begins its scheme checks on your business.

The first of those checks is the onboarding call. You'll hear from your dedicated MCS Account Manager (MCS assigns them to your business once it receives your application from your certification body, and they're your direct point of contact for the rest of the process). They guide you through onboarding, keep you updated and answer questions, so the call is also your introduction to the person you'll be dealing with.

Only once the scheme checks are passed does your certification body conduct its transition assessment, and only after signing the MCS Installer Agreement are you actually operating under the redeveloped scheme. The Certificate of Conformity your certification body issues is confirmation of the assessment, not permission to operate. We walk through the full sequence in the MCS audit checklist, because the assessment is the part install businesses tend to under-prepare for. The onboarding call comes first, and it sets the tone for everything after it.

What the call actually covers

MCS describes the call as short, 15 minutes, and focused on one thing: demonstrating both your understanding of two documents, and how they're embedded in your operations.

The two documents are the Customer Commitment (your responsibility to protect consumers and adhere to consumer protection laws) and the Installer Operating Requirements, the framework for how you gain and maintain certification. Together they replace the old MCS 001-1 Contractor Standard. Whether you still need a consumer code membership like RECC or HIES alongside them is a separate question, and worth settling before your transition rather than after.

Read that brief carefully. The call isn't a quiz on the documents. It's a conversation about your operations. "Embedded in your operations" is the phrase MCS uses, and it's the difference between an answer that lands and one that doesn't:

• "We have a complaints process" is an answer about a document.
• "A complaint comes in by phone or email, it gets logged against the customer's job the same day, and here's who picks it up and how long they have to respond" is an answer about your business.

Nobody is asking you to recite clauses. They're asking whether the commitments exist in how jobs actually run. If your answer to "how does this work day to day" is a description of what you intend to set up, the call will find that out.

Who should be on the call

The redeveloped scheme requires three roles to exist in your business, and the call is the wrong time to be deciding who holds them. Assign these before anyone telephones:

• Licensee: signs the Installer Agreement and accepts ultimate responsibility for meeting scheme requirements. They need authority to sign on behalf of the business.
• Main Contact: the day-to-day point of contact with your certification body and MCS, replacing the old Nominee. If this person changes, MCS and your certification body must be told, because the role is held against your record in the MCS Installations Database.
• Technical Supervisor: responsible for confirming each installation complies with the relevant MCS Installation Standard, so their evidence has to be per-technology. We cover the qualification evidence and sub-contracting rules in depth elsewhere; for the call itself, know who holds the role and that their qualification is in date.

One person can hold multiple roles, but all three must exist and be evidenced. Whoever takes the call should know the names and be able to speak to how the business satisfies the Customer Commitment in practice.

How to prepare: an hour, not a project

MCS publishes its own readiness checklist, and it's worth working through properly. If you have one hour before the call, here's how I'd spend it:

1. Read the two documents as a case study, not a policy. Pick one recent job and walk it against the Customer Commitment and the Installer Operating Requirements. Where did the pre-sale information live, who supervised the install, what would a customer have received?
2. Write down your three roles. If the Technical Supervisor's qualification is out of date or isn't on MCS's approved list for the technology, that's a problem to fix now, not during scheme checks.
3. Run the ten-minute evidence test. Pick a recent job and try to assemble its full compliance record (test results, photos, commissioning information, customer contact details) in ten minutes. If you can't, fix the system, not the job. We cover this test in more detail in the MCS audit checklist, because your certification body's assessment will lean on the same evidence.
4. Know which business scenario you are. Appendix A of the Installer Operating Requirements outlines four business scenarios by size and complexity. Identify which one matches yours, because your processes and controls need to meet the requirements for that scenario.
5. Check your financial protection position. For domestic installations under the redeveloped scheme you need an approved financial protection product, purchased on behalf of the customer, with the provider recorded in the MID where applicable. If you don't have one, know which product you'll use before the call.

None of this is exam revision. It's the operational visibility the redeveloped scheme assumes you have. If step 3 is hard, if assembling one job's record means searching WhatsApp threads and a shared drive, the preparation isn't the real problem, the system is. That's the same gap that makes commissioning evidence and DNO applications painful across the business, and it's why install businesses running jobs through one platform find the whole transition easier than those reconstructing history from inboxes.

What happens after the call

The onboarding call opens the scheme checks; it isn't a pass-or-fail exam on its own. Answer well and the rest of your scheme checks, your certification body's transition assessment and the Installer Agreement follow on your Account Manager's timeline. Answer poorly and you've told MCS your documentation isn't embedded anywhere yet, which slows the move you have to complete by the 31 March 2027 backstop.

The businesses that find this call easy are the ones whose answers come straight out of their job records: which customer, which job, which supervisor, which evidence, in minutes rather than days. That operational readiness is worth building whether or not your certification body has called you yet. If you're newly certified and working out whether you need MCS at all, or weighing up certification against the grant work you're chasing, these habits are cheaper to build from day one than to retrofit under deadline pressure.

If you want a structured read on where your business stands against the whole move (the roles, the record-keeping, the consumer protection requirements), our MCS readiness checker walks the redeveloped scheme's requirements and names your gaps. If you'd rather see how the job record, evidence and certificates would sit together before your transition starts, book a demo and we'll walk through it.