Build / Web app development

Kreatos

A unified future-proof booking platform for 100+ salons

Kreatos, part of Hair Club BV, operates over 120 salons across Flanders, combining company-owned locations and independent franchises. Their existing booking platform had become expensive and limited in flexibility. Kreatos turned to icapps to build a custom booking solution, one they could manage in-house, scale across all salons, and tailor to their brand and operational needs.

Services

Tech

React
PHP

Challenge

Kreatos’ existing booking tool was expensive and fragmented. Salons each managed their own setup, resulting in inconsistent service names, different booking flows, and a fragmented customer experience. At the same time, hundreds of stylists were already deeply familiar with the old platform. Any replacement had to strike the right balance: offer a modern UX without disrupting daily salon operations.

The core challenge was threefold:

Uniform experience: Create a modern booking flow that unifies the user experience across salons.
Operational efficiency: Build a centralized, scalable system that standardizes operations across all salons while keeping the admin experience familiar and efficient for staff.
Vendor lock-in: replace the expensive SaaS platform without impacting daily operations.

The solution

We created a new booking platform that brings consistency and control across the Kreatos network.

Customer facing: We redesigned the booking widget aligned to the Kreatos brand with a modern and responsive step-by-step flow.
Operational excellence: We built a powerful admin portal that centralizes operations across Kreatos salons.

Our approach

In order to deliver value quickly and consistently, we embraced our SMART Build principles, leveraging the power of Laravel using Filament for the admin portal and API Platform as foundation for API development. The booking widget was built using React with shadcn/ui and Tailwind. This approach enabled us to deliver a robust, modular, and governance-ready platform that accelerates development, reduces maintenance, and ensures a consistent and intuitive UX across all salons.

Widget development: Analysis workshops mapped out the ideal customer journey and UX improvements. To accelerate development and ensure accessibility, the widget was built in React, starting from our custom template project containing prebuilt tools like shadcn/ui and Tailwind, which handle most of the boilerplate code required for each setup.
Admin dashboard: On-site sessions captured all operational needs, from managing shifts and staff to updating services, ensuring the system was intuitive for salon employees. A dedicated backend in Laravel Filament connects the widget and admin environment, supported by role-based access control (RBAC) to ensure employees only see the functionality relevant to their role.
API & Integration: The API serves as the central entrypoint, exposing both domain data and logic as a single source of truth. By leveraging API Platform, we accelerate API development through schema-driven resource definitions, automatic serialization, validation, and built-in OpenAPI documentation. This ensures that the booking widget, and all future touchpoints, can consume well-structured APIs. As a result, the solution is extensible, integration-ready, and capable of scaling without rework.

Development proceeded in two-week sprints, with continuous feedback loops. A testing phase with selected salons validated the final platform before a full rollout.

We spoke to several parties. From the very first meeting, icapps gave us a good feeling. They are experienced and enthusiastic, and were able to deliver quickly. They also contributed strategically, that was important to us.

Philip Van Beeck CIO at Kreatos

The outcome

The new Kreatos platform delivers advantages for the Kreatos Group, the salons, and the customers.

Kreatos Group: reduction in third-party licensing costs, full data ownership, uniform experience for customers, central operation layer, and a strong foundation for the future.
Salons/staff: enjoy clear functionalities, less clutter, and tailored features.
Customers: benefit from an intuitive booking experience, and a consistent experience across all salons.

Key features

A customized booking widget built in React and shadcn UI.
Group-wide standardized service categories.
New administration dashboard for managing staff, shifts, and salon settings.
Role-based access control for clear and secure permissions.

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