What is the default character encoding for outgoing Service email, and how does it impact my customers?

Environment:

Oracle B2C Service, All versions - Interfaces / Languages

Resolution:

Each interface is language specific.  Therefore, the outgoing email character encoding default is language specific.  

The Service outgoing email encoding utilized is as follows:

(1) For Service, the interface encoding for the assigned interface of the incident, not the interface logged into.

(2) For Service, forwarded email encoding is the encoding of the interface logged into.

For example, an agent is logged into an English interface configured to use the UTF-8 encoding.  The agent is working an incident associated to the Japanese interface configured to use the ISO-2022-JP encoding.  The incident response will use the Japanese interface encoding.  If the incident is forwarded while logged into the English interface, the English interface encoding UTF-8 will be used for the forwarded email.

By default, outgoing email is NOT configured as a universal encoding except for Western European starting with the August 2010 version.

The character encoding UTF-8 is the most universal encoding.  However, some characters may still not display correctly depending on the recipient’s email client as not all email clients support it.

Note:  Outlook 2013 for Japanese appears to only support EUC, SHIFT-JIS, and UTF-8 encoding but NOT ISO-2022-JP.  Outgoing email may have garbled characters. If customer base or agent base is using Outlook 2013 the outgoing encoding may need to be changed for consistency. It is recommended to use UTF-8 if a change is required to make across interface incident handling consistent.

Before deciding to change the character encoding to UTF-8, evaluate your customer base for the interface and/or language to determine if the change is appropriate to that customer base.  The recommendation is for the Agent to use the interface of the language of the customer base.  

To change the outgoing email encoding for an interface, you will need to submit an incident requesting a change in the outgoing email character encoding.  The specific site and interface are required to confirm the change.