Sprint Direct 2 U will send workers to customers' homes to deliver and help set up new phones, available today in Kansas City, nationwide by end of the year
Sprint Will Come to Your Home or Office to Set Up Your Next Phone — Sprint is launching a new program that will send a worker …
Context & Ripple Effects
Direct 2 U is the newest lever in a string of aggressive customer-acquisition moves Sprint has rolled out in 2015: it started the year by targeting T-Mobile customers with a $200 minimum trade-in offer, and this spring it is adding a service dimension — sending workers to deliver and set up phones at customers' homes and offices, starting today in Kansas City.
The move lands mid-arc for Sprint's business-model overhaul: by August the carrier will abandon two-year contracts entirely and lean on leasing plans like iPhone Forever. With contracts going away, switching friction becomes the battleground, and doorstep delivery-plus-setup is aimed squarely at lowering it.
First-order effects
- Kansas City customers can have a new phone delivered and set up at their home or office starting today, with Sprint committed to taking the program nationwide by the end of the year.
- Sprint gains a non-price differentiator against T-Mobile in the switcher war, where its $200 trade-in offer had been competing on subsidy alone.
Second-order effects
- Rival carriers face pressure to match white-glove delivery and setup as a standard feature rather than a premium concierge service, since Sprint will offer it at no stated extra cost to any buyer.
- As activations move into living rooms, the role of carrier retail stores shifts from sales-and-setup toward support, display, and brand presence.
Third-order effects
- With two-year contracts dying across all major US carriers, the industry's competitive axis migrates from plan pricing toward the end-to-end purchase experience — logistics, installation, and hand-holding become table stakes.
- If the model holds after the year-end national rollout, carrier labor shifts toward field-based service roles, an early instance of consumer-tech companies deploying staff to the customer rather than waiting in stores.
The trend: US wireless carriers are shifting differentiation from subsidized contracts toward service experience, with Sprint betting that doorstep delivery and setup lowers the friction that keeps switchers away.