Eddie Livingston Is President of Community Credit, a Credit Union

Eddie Livingston is president of Community Credit, a credit union with several locations. Eddie has been exploring the impact of service satisfaction with financial performance and is convinced that he can improve the credit union's returns if he can improve customer satisfaction. He has been contemplating a proposal from Re$earch Inc., a research firm that specializes in the financial services industry, to begin a program of improving customer satisfaction. Tanner has recommended a survey of customers to establish gaps in service as perceived by the customers. Eddie knows that the credit union has a list of all the customers and that this information is on an electronic database complete with mailing addresses and, for those having Internet service, email addresses. At the next meeting, Eddie expresses concern that sending a questionnaire to all bank customers is an inconvenience to them and he doesn't want to negatively impact customer satisfaction. The researchers from Re$earch assure Eddie that they can get the needed information for as few as a couple of hundred customers and that the results will be representative of all his credit union customers. Which of the following sample methods would most likely be appropriate?

A) simple random sample
B) judgment sample
C) stratified sample
D) cluster, area sample
E) systematic sample