If you're on hold for 5 minutes, you'll have the option to leave your number and get a call back when the next agent is available. The call back will come from a local number with a 615 area code. Some service providers may flag the call as potential spam, so be aware.

As ticket volume continues to increase, it’s possible that hold times will remain long. In August we accepted 92,276 locate requests bringing us up to 696,819 tickets for the year, an increase of more than 6% over the same time in 2020 (we saw an increase by the same percentage in 2020 over 2019). We encourage you to try E-Ticket or Remote Ticket Entry (RTE) to save you the time and aggravation of being on hold. These online methods of ticket entry currently make up a little over 46% of our incoming tickets. If your call is not for an emergency or complex locate request, please consider entering it online through our E-Ticket platform. You may be able to register for an account and have the ticket submitted in less time than you would be holding for. Our Locate Request Agents review E-Tickets to ensure that all required information is provided and then the ticket is saved and transmitted utilities. Once the ticket has been reviewed and saved, you will receive a confirmation email that includes the ticket number.

Callers also have the option of RTE through the ticket portal, which is a great solution for heavy users who need multiple tickets each day or a large number of tickets each week. Even if you don’t use RTE for new tickets, it’s an efficient way to update your existing tickets. Updating your tickets through RTE is quick to sign up for and easy to learn, so it can save you some serious time if you currently call in a lot of updates. There’s really not much to it – we send you a short video to watch when you get your user credentials, and you’re ready to go! If you want to be a true power user, RTE can also be used to enter your normal locate requests. It’s a live system, so as soon as you enter and save the ticket information, you will receive a ticket number. We have training videos online so that you can learn how to enter your tickets through RTE on your own time.

An important reminder: if your situation is an emergency, second notice, or something else that’s not a normal ticket or an update, you will need to call in.

To get started with RTE for new tickets or updates, visit https://tennessee811.odoo.com/remote-ticket-entry or let one of our Locate Request Agents know you want to become an RTE user.