! Required information [The following information applies to the questions displayed below.] Mendota Foods sells a variety of food products around the world. The company engages directly with individuals with an interest in cooking by offering ideas and recipes in various staff blogs and podcasts. The management team at Mendota believes this drives brand loyalty and allows Mendota to charge a premium for its products. One initiative that Mendota has been running for the last three years is a call center with staff who can provide help and answer questions about cooking in general and Mendota products in particular. The chief financial officer is interested in learning more about the costs of this initiative and how they vary with the demands placed on the center. To help answer the question, the financial staff have collected call center volume (number of calls) and call center cost for the last 12 months. During a discussion of those results, one of the cost analysts suggests that length of the calls (total hours) is probably a better driver of call center costs. The managers asked the analyst to collect the information and report on how it should be used. The combined data follow: Number of Month Calls Hours Call Center Costs 1 60,750 15,860 $ 287,710 2 67,150 17,140 268,095 3 60,250 16,000 238,500 4 62,000 14,500 244,515 5 45,250 12,620 182,700 6 74,150 20,000 280,690 7 52,100 13,180 252,710 8 65,600 17,540 282,795 9 77,500 21,150 314,925 10 45,250 10,400 153,675 11 66,700 18,460 292,410 12 69,900 18,820 271,885 Required: a. Use the high-low method to estimate the fixed and variable portions of call center costs based on call center time (hours). Note: Negative amounts should be indicated by a minus sign. Variable cost (per hour) Fixed cost