I asked the question directly to Cordovan during one of his live streams, and he explained that the mechanic used is the same as they currently use to transfer characters. In other words, no manual intervention needed and it is pretty streamlined. I have gone through the process twice, once the old way where you submit a ticket (which worked fine but took a few days) and once using the transfer option available on the login GUI of the launcher which is super easy.
A couple of points - if you delete a character there is no getting it back or transferring it. You can, however, transfer a dead character from hardcore if you leave it in the land of lost souls instead of deleting it. If the name already exists on the receiving server, yes, you will get a -1 (or similar) appended to the name along with a free "Character Rename" token. Also, as far as I can gather, there will not be a transfer option FROM a standard server TO a hardcore server. At least that was the way it looks in the FAQ.