The manager of the customer service division of a major consumer electronics company is interested in determining whether the customers who have purchased a videocassette recorder over the past 12 months are satisfied with their products.If there are 4 different brands of videocassette recorders made by the company,the best sampling strategy would be to use a:

A) simple random sample.
B) stratified random sample.
C) cluster sample.
D) self-selected sample.

With four different brands of videocassette recorders, using a simple random sample or a cluster sample may not adequately represent the opinions of each brand's customers. A stratified random sample would involve dividing the population of customers who purchased a videocassette recorder in the past 12 months into four strata based on the brand they purchased. Within each stratum, a simple random sample can then be selected. This would ensure that each brand is represented proportionally in the sample and increase the accuracy of the results.